


That Would Be Enough

by MarcellaBianca



Series: That Would Be Enough [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - Teachers, Anal Sex, Artist Steve Rogers, Awesome Carol Danvers, Awesome Darcy Lewis, Beaches, Biphobia, Bisexual Bucky Barnes, Brock Rumlow always sucks, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes-centric, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depression, Eating Disorders, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Evil Alexander Pierce, F/F, F/M, Gay Steve Rogers, Idiots in Love, Kissing, M/M, Making Love, Making Out, Morning Sex, Mutual Pining, Natasha Romanov Is Not A Robot, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, Oral Sex, References to Depression, References to eating disorders, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Shower Sex, So does Pierce, Steve Rogers Feels, Stucky Big Bang 2017, Very loosely based on a real boarding school in Connecticut, Way too much geeking out about Hamilton, brunching, so much fucking pining, threat of sexual assault, working out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-18
Updated: 2017-08-18
Packaged: 2018-12-13 11:51:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 13
Words: 59,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11759271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarcellaBianca/pseuds/MarcellaBianca
Summary: Bucky Barnes, a Columbia University graduate with a Masters Degree in Education, is in his fourth year of teaching AP US History at Shield Academy, a private school in the very heart of the Connecticut valley in the bucolic town of Barkstead. He also helps run the Russian Club with his colleague and best friend, Natasha Romanov. He’s got amazing friends, three nephews he adores, and a beautiful little apartment. The only thing Bucky would change about his life? His luck in love. It’s been two years since Bucky ended an emotionally abusive relationship and he’s just now starting to feel that his heart has healed enough to try dating again. Then, a new Art History and English teacher arrives with tattoos he doesn’t like talking about, a body like a Greek god, and some secrets of his own, and Bucky knows he’s done for. Cue pining, sass, and a ton of Hamilton references.CW: Eating disorders, references to emotional and psychological abuse, and attempted dub-con sex.





	1. Look Around, Look Around

**Author's Note:**

> Woof. It is DONE. I am so, so frickin excited to finally unleash this beast into the world. It was a true labor of love. I adored working on it. 
> 
> This is very, VERY loosely based on two teachers I had at my own private school, who were straight, but always walked to Starbucks together in the morning. They even had matching backpacks. We were all obsessed with them. Also the school is real, just named Shield for STORY REASONS, but my school was all-girls rather than co-ed. 
> 
> Thank you so, so much to my AMAZING artist [AlienWearsSunglasses](http://talienwearssunglasses.tumblr.com) for her gorgeous art. 
> 
> thanks to colorcoated01 for cheerleading, moscarific for the encouragement and looking over pages when I thought I sucked, and siriusgrey for her AMAZING job whipping this damn thing into shape. Couldn't ask for a better beta!
> 
> PLEASE READ THE CONTENT WARNINGS ON THE CHAPTERS. I swear this thing ends with the fluffiest of fluff, but there are a lot of things that happen before that point. So...be aware.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A few weeks at Bucky's job at Shield, with some surprises.

 

Even though it was April and the year’s routine should have been old hat, the 5AM Monday morning alarm of “Guns and Ships” from _Hamilton_ still elicited a deep groan from Bucky’s chest. The sun was barely breaking through the horizon, dappling the newly-leaved trees on campus. Sometimes Bucky missed Brooklyn – okay, he missed Brooklyn all the time – but there was something about a cool morning in Barkstead, Connecticut, that seemed to settle his bones. It contained a serenity that the early morning vendors and car alarms in New York didn’t have. Even though they had everything else.

The blankets on Bucky’s bed had become totally haphazard over the course of the night; he slept with several of them to keep out the early spring chill, and half of them were twisted up at his feet. The rest were pulled randomly all over the bed in a mosaic of messy quilts and sheets. In the corner of the bedroom the schedule for the day glared at him.

_5:30 – Gym with Nat_

_7:40 – Free period_

_8:40 – AP US History, Juniors_

_10:15: Morning Meeting!_

_Afternoon: Work on Proposal, NO EXCUSES_

_3:30: Russian Club_

_Class stuff_

Bucky blinked hard as he checked over his phone schedule and saw how hard he’d highlighted and capitalized “NO EXCUSES”. He was working on a possible elective course in Russian History for seniors who had done well in their AP History credits; just needed to get it by Schmidt, the head of the History department. One of the benefits of working at a private school like Shield Academy was the broad variety of classes and the supportive nature of the people Bucky taught with. In a fall faculty meeting, Head of School Nick Fury had announced Shield was planning to offer elective courses for upper level English, History, and Art, which gave Bucky the world’s biggest nerd-boner. He’d audibly squeaked, which Nat instantly picked up on and made fun of him for weeks.

It was a quick, easy walk from Bucky’s off-campus apartment building to the Academy’s gym, located in the underbelly of the Timothy Dugan Athletic Center. Commonly known to students and faculty as “The Dum-Dum,” the center housed the school’s squash and basketball courts as well as an indoor track, the fitness center, and the offices for the athletic department. Normally, Bucky would run outside, but construction was underway for the new library and it made his normal routine absolute hell, so he wanted to work out in a controlled environment. It was a great decision – Nat was already doing arm swings next to the squat rack. “You’re late,” she gently admonished. Bucky put his hands up in surrender. “Not all of us can spring out of bed at the asscrack of dawn with nary a hair out of place!”

He motioned to the weights. “Circuits and cardio today?”

“That’s the plan, Stan.”

“Who the hell is Stan, don’t you know me?”

Nat grinned, and scraped her hair back into a high ponytail. “You love me.”

“You bet I do.” There weren’t many people in the world Bucky liked and respected more than Natasha Romanov. Except for his parents, of course. And his sister, Becca. But they were in Brooklyn, and Nat was here. So she won. Barely.

There was a Bluetooth connection in the treadmill thanks to some summertime upgrades, so Bucky loaded up his cardio playlist – the PG one, in case any students came in for an early morning workout. Nat saw, and cracked a wry smile. “All _Hamilton_ , huh?”

“There’s some Gaga on there,” Bucky said, more defiant than defensive. He’d never apologize for his playlists.

Natasha Romanov was one tough cookie. Aside from heading Dance Workshop and teaching Russian at Shield, she also participated in fitness competitions. Because she didn’t have enough on her plate, Bucky thought, but it didn’t surprise him in the least when Nat told him she wanted to try figure, a category in bodybuilding. “It isn’t the kind where I’ll look like John Cena, I promise,” she’d explained to Bucky. Natasha was ferociously competitive in every aspect of her life, and this was just one more thing to add to the list. Bucky harbored no such aspirations. Working out was a way to arrange his brain in the morning, to wake him up. It comforted him, helped him focus.

Their workout wasn’t talkative. The silence of the gym was lifted by a weight being gently placed back on its rack, or the occasional high-five when Bucky finished a sprint drill or Nat powered through another clean and jerk. Halfway through the hour, Nat’s husband Clint (Shield Academy’s athletic director and head football coach) came by with a protein shake for her and an extra water bottle for Bucky. “Ahhh, thank you, “ Bucky smiled as he took the water from him. “If Nat ever leaves you, let me know.”

“You will be the first man I call,” Clint smirked, pressing a kiss to the top of Nat’s hair as she sat in the leg press. Nat managed to slap his ass as he walked away. “I’ll kill the both of you while you sleep!” she threatened, with zero heat behind it. Clint came back and pulled her head up to drop a big, exaggerated kiss on her mouth. Bucky felt it again – that familiar, painful twinge just under his solar plexus. The pang of _wanting_. The urge to be with someone.

A feeling Bucky thought would never come to him again.

It must have been way too obvious, because Nat finished her leg presses and came up to him. “You almost finished up?” she asked softly, her hand on Bucky’s shoulder.

“Yeah,” Bucky replied, breezy as anything. He slipped by her to rack his weights. He avoided her gaze.

 

* * *

 

 

 _“Could you not laugh that loud? Damn, James.” Alex’s eyes were amused as he looked over at Bucky, but behind the laughter was a sharper tang, a kind of velvet-covered knife. Bucky felt his gut twist a little. They were at the movies, on a Tuesday, seeing some art-house comedy that Alex had insisted they check out. Nobody else was in the fucking theatre._ It’s not like I’m disturbing anyone _Bucky thought furiously. But he nodded. The next time Seth Rogen said something funny, he kept his mouth shut. No need to embarrass anyone. Even if it was just Alex._

 

* * *

 

 

Bucky washed up and changed in the athletic complex locker room, then walked with Nat to the off-campus Starbucks for their traditional post-workout coffees - black for Nat, iced mocha with stevia for Bucky. Bucky also sprung for a chocolate croissant and yogurt parfait. “Don’t you give me that, Miss I Think Kale Is A Dessert Food,” he said pointedly, before Nat even opened her mouth. But just to placate that hairy eyeball, Bucky got a banana.

Half an hour before first period. “You have Russian, right?” Bucky asked between bites.

“ _Da_. You have free period, you lucky bastard?”

Bucky chuckled. “Yep but it won’t be free. I think Kamala is coming to my office to let me know about her application to Dartmouth and then I have to work on that class proposal. It’s not like I”m gonna be sitting there with my foot up my own ass.”

“Well, isn’t that a lovely visual.”

“Any time, Tsarina.” Bucky blew her an exaggerated kiss, to which she discreetly flipped him off. 

“You’re still fine-tuning that Cold War History proposal? Buck. It’s been months.” Nat ran a hand through her fire-engine red hair (that she swore wasn’t from a box but come on, Bucky’s bisexual not blind). “I thought you were going to submit that last summer.”

“Yeah. Needs more work. I need to show them there’s viable interest in the course as an elective.” 

“It definitely will have interest. Russian Club is going great, and your students love you.”

Bucky shrugged, staring deep into his yogurt. The cherry and granola swirl offered zero encouragement. “Well, here’s hoping.”

When he looked back up from his food there was Nat’s Hairy Eyeball again. “What?” he demanded. “I feel like I’m getting interrogated.” 

“You were never this self-conscious about your work before…” Nat trailed off, her voice too unbearable for Bucky to hear because of how soft it was. How kind. Bucky didn’t want sympathy. 

“Nat. It’s been two years since Alex and I broke up. I’m fine.”

“Okay,” Nat responded, and kept sipping her coffee. She never pushed him about Alex. At first, that struck Bucky as strange. Then, he realized it was because Nat knew if she pushed at that nerve, the entire system would fail.

Bucky’s office was located on the first floor of the main office building in Shield Academy. Nicknamed the Helicarrier due to its serpentine, futuristic design scheme, it also housed the dining hall and the offices of Fury, Dean of Students Phil Coulson, head administrative assistant Darcy Lewis, and a few . Bucky had no idea how he lucked out and got an office in one of the nicest and newest buildings on Shield’s campus. Actually, he had a pretty good idea why – they had run out of office space in the History department when Bucky got hired four years ago.

Thank goodness for that spacing issue. Now Bucky had a window! To the outside world! With sunlight, and breeze!

Kamala was waiting outside his door when Bucky got there. Unsurprising. Kamala Khan was one of Bucky’s best students; they had formed a tight bond the second Kamala had gotten on campus as a freshman and had been assigned Bucky as an advisor. She was bright, funny, kind, and passionate about her work. An ideal student. One that Bucky hoped would stay in touch once she graduated in June.

“Hey, K!” he greeted her warmly. “What can I do ya for?”

Kamala’s eyes were bright and excited as Bucky let her walk in front of him into his office. It had taken a while, but Bucky had finally decided on a scheme for his office design – lots of Russian influence, because he was the resident Cold War expert aside from Nat, and several matryoshka dolls sat on his desk. Most of those were gag gifts from Nat and Clint.  On the wall was a picture of a zombie from _The Walking Dead_ with the caption _Me Before Coffee_. That one was a birthday gift from Sam after Bucky had snapped at him during an early morning faculty meeting. The only thing in the place that Bucky’d bought specifically for office decoration was the Harry Potter Funko Pop doll in a place of honor on the desk, next to the nesting dolls.

Bucky gestured for Kamala to sit down but she shook her head, bouncing from foot to foot with anticipation. “I heard from Dartmouth.”

“And?!” Bucky’s heart skipped.

Kamala said nothing, she just smiled, and Bucky fistpumped. “Yes! I knew it! Can I hug you?” _Always ask for permission to touch a student._

Kamala ran into Bucky’s arms and squeezed him so hard Bucky worried for a second that his ribs would crack. He managed to gasp out, “I knew it, K. Your junior year was so excellent, they’d be idiots not to take you. Are you going to put up an acceptance sign on the College Board?” In the main lobby of the Helicarrier, the seniors had a wall dedicated to college acceptance notifications. They were getting more and more extravagant as the weeks went by.

“Yep, Mary-Jane is making mine for me,” Kamala laughed, and let go of Bucky.

“You better come back and visit me, you hear me? I need all of that Ivy League gossip,” Bucky teased.

“I’m sure I’ll have tons for you!” Kamala adjusted her hijab after it had gotten put a bit askew by Bucky’s hug. “I gotta get going to stats, but I wanted to tell you in person. And, thank you so much again for the recommendation letter. It means so much that you did that for me.”

“Don’t even mention it. I’d do it again in a second.”

As Kamala left, Bucky pushed the heel of his palm into his eye to stop himself from bawling like a baby. His personal life was in the toilet, but at least he was a damn good teacher and leader for these kids.

 

* * *

 

 

“So.” Bucky stared out at his class, feeling the nerdy sparkle that always came over him when talking about juicy political history. “We’re at the Watergate hotel. It’s 1972, right before the Democratic National Convention. Anyone want to tell me one of the main reasons why a couple robbers got caught breaking into the Democratic Party’s headquarters?”

Silence. A couple barely hidden yawns.

Bucky sat in his chair and twiddled his thumbs in an exaggerated fashion. “Remember what I told you guys in August? About how if no one answers me I’m totally fine with just sitting here and staring at you all, making bad American flag puns until you crack? Here we go. It’s gonna get real awkward in here – Ah, Peter!” he said loudly  to the slightly harried junior in the middle row of chairs who looked like he had only raised his hand to save the class from Bucky’s Dad humor. “You saved us!”

“Yeah, um, the security guard found tape on the door and took it off, and then he came back an hour later and the tape was back on?”

Bucky threw Peter a piece of gum from the candy bowl on his desk. “You get an Orbit! Now, for the sugary stuff. What was the name of the guard who found the tape?”

Before Peter could answer, his girlfriend Gwen Stacy jumped in with “Frank Wills.”

“Ohh, Gwen with the steal!” Bucky tossed Gwen a piece of Bazooka Joe, which she immediately tore into. “Okay, so the Watergate break-in as an event was pretty low-grade at first glance, but then it morphed into one of the biggest political scandals in US History up to that point. And I’m sure a lot of you are hearing news reports right now about it because everyone is comparing it to this current administration and the situation with Russian interference.”

“Yeah, but aren’t there a ton of differences, Mr. Barnes?” piped up Miles Morales from the back. “Like, that was an in-house conspiracy, not collusion with an outside government.”

“Exactly, which leads us directly into the homework for Wednesday!” Bucky said with a  broad smile, which itself led to a chorus of good-natured groans from his AP US History class. “You’re going to research the parallels and differences between Watergate and so-called ‘Kremlingate.’ I want a paragraph each on three differences and three parallels. Okay?” The class nodded, all taking notes in their day planners or on their laptops. “All right. Get going to Kirby for Morning Meeting.”

As the class shuffled out, Gwen sidled up to Bucky’s desk. “Hey Mr. Barnes. Did you say last class that you were maybe doing a Russian or Cold War History elective next year?”

“That’s the plan!” Bucky picked up his laptop and textbook to shove into his cross-body bag. “Depends on if I get enough interest.”

“Well, I think there’s going to be plenty of interest, Mr. Barnes. I know Peter, Miles, and I would love to sign up for it.”

“Really?” Not that Bucky should’ve been too surprised – those three were very politically active, and had even spearheaded the Shield field trip into Hartford for the Women’s March in January. But this was such a niche topic. Bucky was constantly checking himself about whether or not anyone would want to learn about it in a sustained, semester-long seminar. It always made Nat and Sharon furious with him. “You’re the best history teacher here, and for someone so smart, you’re so stupid,” Sharon had told him once over late-night beers at his apartment. Sharon was one of his best friends, but she could be a little aggressive when she’d been drinking. To say nothing of when her cousin and said cousin’s girlfriend came into town.

“Of course,” Gwen said, throwing him a big smile. “You’re our favorite teacher here, Mr. Barnes.”

“Well, don’t tell Gaspazha Romanova that, she’ll put my head on a pike,” Bucky managed to say, once he was done furiously hiding his deep blush.

 

* * *

 

Morning Meeting took place in Jack Kirby Auditorium every Monday morning at 10:15. The theatre was named after one of the first graduates of Shield Academy, a man who went on to become a famous artist and critic who ended up donating a lot of money to the school in his later years. He was apparently a really cool guy, according to some of the older teachers who had met him before he’d passed away.

It was a pretty standard assembly. Bucky sat with his advisees near the center of the modest auditorium. Shield Academy was a small school, so the theatre space only needed about 500 chairs to seat faculty and students comfortably. Bucky threw a wave to Nat and Clint as they traipsed in with their advising groups, as well as Sam and Sharon who followed close behind. The heads of Morning Meeting, juniors Raven Darkholme and Kurt Wagner, loudly cleared their throats to quiet everyone down.

“Welcome to Monday’s Morning Meeting!” Raven said, cheerful and bubbly, her blonde and blue-streaked hair turning almost neon under the harsh house lights. “A quick PSA before we get into everything today – the boys’ basketball team is playing in the league championship on Wednesday so we hope to see everyone come out to watch!” The room exploded with cheers and whistles. “I hope everyone can make it out to The Triskelion campus to watch the game, there will be buses leaving by A-lot at around 4 PM.”

Triskelion School was Shield’s “sibling” school. Founded by Shield graduate Arnim Zola in the late 1940s, the school was known for its rigorous academics and almost-military like excellence in sports. The rivalry between Shield and The Triskelion School was legendary.

Bucky’s phone buzzed in his pocket.

 _Nat: You gonna go?_ _  
_

Regret corseted around Bucky’s heart. _Too soon_ he wrote back. He got a heart emoji in response.

After Raven’s basketball promo, several clubs stood up to make their weekly address. Sometimes Bucky would get up to talk about future plans for the Russian Club, but today he left that to the two student body heads, Wanda and Pietro Maximoff. They made short work of the speech, informing everyone that they would be holding a special discussion on the 1980s Communist Revolutions in Eastern Europe and how it connected to the ultimate turnover of Russia to a struggling democracy and the rise of Vladimir Putin.

After the myriad of announcements were complete, Nick Fury stood up. Bucky leaned forward in his seat. Normally Fury didn’t make an announcement unless someone was leaving, or something terrible was about to happen. But Fury didn’t look too grave.

“I would just like to make an announcement regarding the recent news of Abraham Erskine’s retirement. If you are planning to go to the reception honoring his career, it starts at 5PM on Friday in the upper atrium of the athletic complex.”

Ah. Not a surprise at all. Abe Erskine was a legend in both the Art History and English departments at Shield. Kind, brilliant, and mentor to pretty much every teacher at the school, Erskine had become a friend to Bucky from the second he stepped on campus. It wasn’t a big shock to anyone when Erskine announced his retirement; he was getting on in years and he’d been having some health issues.

“Now, over the next few weeks, we’re going to have some applicants for the Art History and English positions. They’ll be taking tours and classroom visits. So I want all of you to be on your best behavior and to be as warm and welcoming as you can. If an applicant comes to your class, you will treat them like you would any of your regular teachers. Sound good?”

The entire assembly nodded their assent. Fury let one side of his mouth crinkle up in benevolence.

The meeting adjourned with several seniors standing up and screaming, “FORTY-FIVE DAYS TILL GRADUATION!” and the senior class exploding with cheers and applause.

 

* * *

 

Bucky was walking back up the hill to his office when Bucky was stopped by Fury. “Barnes. Some of the people we’re vetting for Erskine’s job might want to talk to you about possible crossover projects in the history department. Keep your eyes peeled for emails from the person who gets the job if they’re interested.”

“Why me?” Bucky asked. He received a smile from Fury that would be comforting if it were on, say, Sam or Clint, but on Fury’s craggy mug it was a different story. “Because you’re the one who’s expressed interest in those kind of cross-pollinating classes before, and count me amongst the interested parties.” He walked past Bucky. “And get me that proposal for the Russian History class. I’ve been waiting!” he called over his shoulder.

Bucky spent the next two hours in his office meeting with students, fielding calls from parents, and carving out time to make some proposal edits. At one 1PM he met up with Sharon, Sam, and Tony for lunch.

“Still can’t believe they got rid of the peanut butter in the cafeteria,” Tony grumbled. He picked up the jar of soynut butter and warily eyed it.

“Dude, Coulson’s wife is crazy allergic.” Sam shot Tony a Look.

“Why do we all have to suffer?” Tony squawked, but he put the jar back on the shelf. Bucky sighed. It had taken a while to get used to Tony Stark. He wasn’t known for his tact, or compliance with school rules. Or compliance with any rules. When Bucky had taken his first visit to Shield, Sam had introduced Tony to Bucky as “the mad scientist.” Since then, Bucky had heard horror stories about how many times Tony had blown a fuse in the robotics lab or accidentally set a computer on fire, and that was when he’d been a student. He’d calmed down in recent years, thanks in no small part to his relationship with Pepper Potts and his reconciled bond with his father Howard. Bucky found the engineering behind robotics and shop absolutely fascinating, but no way in hell would he ever go to Tony’s lab. Too many rumors about sentient robots and random electrical explosions.

Sharon piled arugula and turkey on her plate. She rolled her eyes at Tony. “I’m sure you’ve been having withdrawals, Stark.”

“Hey, without my peanut butter, I’m a maniac. I’m like Bucky when he hasn’t had coffee.”

“Harsh,” Bucky murmured behind a bite of sandwich. “How was your morning, Carter?”

“Eh, as good as can be expected when you have panicky juniors trying to nail down their grades,” Sharon sighed. Bucky knew that feeling. Junior year at Shield was the most stressful due to everyone trying to get their grades at an acceptable level for their college applications. It was the time for AP courses, SAT tests, and college choices. Bucky didn’t know how these kids did it, with everything expected of them. Sharon, as the AP Algebra teacher, had seen more than her fair share of meltdowns over the past few weeks. “It sucks, “ she added on, a little quieter than before.

“What kind of applicants are we gonna get for Erskine’s job?” Sam asked, changing the subject as he sat down with his food. Bucky was grateful for the interruption of Sharon’s sad train of thought.

“Beats the hell out of me. Erskine’s a specific type of guy. Probably someone crotchety like him.” Bucky had nothing but love in his reply. Erskine was a legend, a tentpole in the Shield community. He was always around to help people out, and his wine and cheese nights at his old house up near the church at the corner of Shield’s campus were legendary.

“Eh. I don’t know. Fury’s been talking about getting someone a little bit younger. Maybe our age.” Sharon shrugged, then stole a glance at the table where Fury and Coulson (the source of Tony’s peanut butter woes), were talking intensely with Erskine. Probably going over the type of qualifications necessary for his position. Erskine wasn’t just the Art History teacher and a member of the English department. He also advised the Art Club, which enjoyed trips to museums across New England and New York City. Bucky had been dying to cross-pollinate the History and Art History classes since he started teaching at Shield but had been hesitant to bring it up to someone as established and traditional as Erskine.

“You coming to the game on Wednesday?” Sam asked, bumping Bucky’s shoulder.

“Oh, uh…” Bucky looked down, suddenly _very_ interested in his potato chips. Tony made a small noise of dissent. “Kid. It’s been two years. You haven’t been to one of those games since you and Alex broke up.”

“Well, can you blame him? He’s the head coach of the team!” Sam looked at Tony in disbelief. “Cold, man.”

“I’m just saying! You gotta move forward eventually,” Tony shrugged like he wasn’t in the least bit sorry for making things awkward. “You’re the better party here, so why are you acting like you’re guilty? Alex is a human taint.”

“Ew. Tony! There are students at the other tables!” Sharon hissed. Tony just speared another pickle. “I’m just saying…”

“I know.” Bucky kept looking at his plate. It offered mayonnaise, crusty bread, turkey, and zero tangible answers. “Eventually I’ll go. It’s just…” Provolone cheese. Side salad. Kettle-baked chips. “I know,” he repeated. Sharon put a hand on his shoulder.

 

* * *

 

Every other part of Bucky’s life was going great. Spectacular, even. He’d gotten his Masters in Education from Columbia after a BA in History (with a Minor in Russian) and two months after getting his diploma he was hired by Shield. It was a no-brainer – Nat had been one of Bucky’s best friends in college, and had been hired for the Russian Language job at Shield shortly before Bucky’s campus visit. The only heartbreak Bucky had faced at that time was leaving Brooklyn and his family. But they had practically shoved him out of the moving van the day Bucky got into his apartment at Barkstead. No crying allowed, they’d told him.

So yeah, work and family and friends were great. Bucky had gotten used to the Barkstead Valley area and loved his job.

If only his romantic life had been so easy. So straightforward. So painless.

 

* * *

 

Two weeks later Bucky was working on a lesson plan when Fury knocked on the door. “Going to have Darcy bring around a candidate for Erskine’s post.”

“Cool,” Bucky replied without looking up from his laptop. This wasn’t new – Darcy dealt with all new faculty applicants. Over the past fourteen days she’d paraded four other candidates through the doors of the Helicarrier. Most of them were older, and they’d all been fine. Not spectacular or particularly memorable, but fine. Serviceable.

“They’re beige,” Bucky had told Nat during their morning lift. Nat lifted her eyebrows in confusion. “Like, in pigment, or…”

“No, Natashenka,” Bucky replied, earning him a punch in the arm; he only used the diminutive of Nat’s name when he wanted to be a dick. “They’re beige,” he continued, rubbing his arm. “Like…” Bucky shrugged his shoulders and made an “ehhh” sound. Nat’s face cleared with recognition. “Oh. Yeah, totally. Beige.”

Now Bucky stared at his laptop trying his damndest to connect the election of Ronald Reagan to the economic fears of baby boomers and the gas crisis of the 1970s in a way that wouldn’t make his students all fall asleep from sheer boredom ( _Is there a way to incorporate The Chainsmokers into this?_ he wondered in one moment of lunacy) when Darcy politely rapped on the door. “It’s open!” he called before looking up.

And then Bucky promptly forgot every word in both languages he knew.

Because standing in the doorway next to a smiling Darcy was possibly the world’s most gorgeous man.

 

Blond. Blue eyes like cornflowers. Muscled like he was trained by Russians to fight Rocky Balboa. The legit personification of every single wet dream Bucky ever had since he figured out he liked boys as much as girls (the Marky Mark Calvin Klein ads had a little something to do with _that_ revelation).

Bucky swung his eyes over the man’s blue button-down and grey dress pants and a tie that matched his trousers. His hair was golden and, swept back from his face; not as long as Bucky’s, which Bucky kept in a bun, but still a little longer than average. He was clean-shaven, with a jaw that could probably cut a diamond if it really wanted to.

Bucky allowed himself one glorious second to take in the way Steve’s tailored shirt stretched over those magnificent pecs, then snapped his gaze back to his computer.

Two thoughts circled his head.

One: _FUUUUUUUUUUCK MEEEEEEEE THANK YOU BABY JESUS_

Two: _Don’t look directly at the straight boy ever again_

So Bucky pretended to finish up something very important before he looked back up. “What’s up, Darce?” he asked, smooth as anything, schooling his face into an even mask and willing the blood in his body back into its regular circulation, away from the beeline it wanted to make to his groin.

Darcy pointed a red-nailed finger to the Adonis next to her. “Hi, James, this is Steve, one of the applicants for the History position. Figured I’d bring him by to say hello since you wanted to do some work with that department. Steve, this is James Barnes. He teaches AP History and also co-heads the Russian Club with Natasha Romanov.”

_Okay. Don’t do or say anything stupid. Professional. You are an adult, Bucky._

“Hi, Steve,” Bucky said with a tight, confident smile. “I’m James. Very pleased to meet you.” He stood up, and offered up a hand to Steve, who shook it. Nice grip. Firm, but not bone-crunching. Bucky sat right back down again because his blood was still pooling somewhere south of the equator.

“Nice to meet you, James,” Steve said cheerfully, and god damn, the guy’s voice was like pine honey. Complex and rich. Bucky wanted to eat it on toast.

He forced himself to look as normal as possible. As normal as possible, while also in the beginning throes of a lust-crush.

“I hear you wanted to do some crossover with the Art History department?”

“Yes!” Bucky snapped a gaze over at Darcy who just looked back like  _I know your type, and I’m good_. He hated her. “Um, yeah…I do AP US History, like Darcy said, and I wanted to do some type of crossover work with the Art Club and do some sort of trip that combines US History and US art.”

“I think that would be really cool. Some type of discussion or lecture series on World War 2 propaganda, maybe?” Steve went a little pink at the ears. “I, ah, I did my PhD on War and Testimonial Literature.”

“Where did the Art come from, then?” Bucky said, after a moment forcing his stomach to rearrange itself back into regular position after the realization that the hottest guy he’d ever seen apparently blushed like the spots on a Bartlett pear – pink and lush, like a Connecticut sunrise – yes he was mixing metaphors in his head, but that didn’t matter because _goddamn_ he wanted to see how far that blush went.

“Oh, it was my undergraduate major. Started out in English at NYU but then I transferred.”

“You’re from New York?”

“Yeah. Brooklyn, actually. Transferred from NYU to Brooklyn College.”

“Shut up!” Bucky shouted. Darcy clicked her tongue, and Bucky shrank back. “Sorry, I get over-excited. That’s so funny. I’m from Brooklyn, too!”

“You’re kidding,” Steve said, eyes wide. “Whereabouts?”

“Williamsburg. You?”

“Red Hook. But hey, I get this job, we’ll talk about the neighborhood, ok?” Steve flashed a grin that had Bucky shifting in his seat. It was so, so cute that Steve was this confident about his chances at getting Erskine’s job. The other applicants he’d met were shy, but not like Steve. Steve looked like he didn’t much want to talk about himself and his own accomplishments, but when it came to teaching and getting his work done, he was much more forward. Bucky instantly liked him. Well, beyond the whole ‘wanting to get bent over his desk by the guy’ thing.

Wait. Was this what it felt like to think a guy was hot again? What was life?

Steve and Darcy were gone once Bucky managed to come back to this galaxy. Once he checked the periphery to make sure no one would walk in he texted Nat – _Oh fuck oh fuck one of the applicants just toured the office with Darcy and OMMMMMGGGG_

_NAT: DETAILS._

_Blond. Blue eyes. Shaped like a fuckin Dorito._ _So pretty I want to cry._

_NAT: You hop on it? Because you should hop on it_

_Nah I don’t even know if he’s gonna get the job_  
I’ll probably never see him again  
Let alone hop on it

_Nat: He’s going on the list?_

_Definitely_

The List was a compendium of men, both famous and non, that Bucky knew he would never have a shot with, so it was perfectly reasonable to jerk off to the thought of them.

_NAT: You never know! He could get it. Clint met him earlier about doing sports stuff for his extracurriculars and really liked him_

_Yeah but God isn’t that kind Nat at least not to me_

_NAT: *_ **_frowny face emoji_ ** _*_

 

* * *

 

The end of the spring semester always passed in a flurry of activity – juniors were taking AP exams, seniors were completing the end of year traditions that signified their move from students to alumni, as well as the annual “tapping” or selecting of juniors who would be taking on roles in student government. And, of course, the best day of the entire year took place four days before graduation: the annual senior skit. The senior class scripted and starred in a short play about the faculty. Bucky loved it, because they always poked fun of how nerdy he was; this year the senior portraying him just ran around the entire stage in a Superman costume hollering “NEW COMPANION ON DOCTOR WHO IS GAY!”

 

 

“For the record,” Bucky whispered to Nat as they chaperoned from the back of the house, “I didn’t get _that_ excited about Bill.”

“Yeah you did. I was there. You shrieked at a level dogs could hear.”

“…Touché.”

Bucky got his revenge, though. The senior playing Nat was barely five feet tall and just strolled around chugging from a giant box of protein shakes, much to Bucky’s amusement. This year the plot revolved around a secret society made up of the teachers on campus. Due to Bucky’s red star tattoo on his arm, the seniors decided to pretend that arm was cybernetic, much to the horror of Tony, who leaned over and whispered to Bucky “They gave you a robotic arm and they made me look like Doc Brown? This is bullshit.”

Bucky was too busy laughing at the senior playing Fury, who randomly walked onstage at various intervals in the play’s proceedings to yell “NO SWEATPANTS.”

The air was sweet from the giant magnolia tree outside the Kirby. It only bloomed for a few weeks, so Bucky took some time after the play’s conclusion (he and Nat, Sam, and Clint, armed with dumbbells and Harry Potter Funko Pops, took out the evil faculty from The Triskelion School) to stand underneath the flowers and take a deep, cleansing breath. The scent washed over him like a floral mist. Bucky smiled and waved at the students running across the street to the dorm houses, all named for famous graduates – Jarvis, Jones, Morita, Falsworth.

This was Bucky’s dream job. Working with his best friend, at a great school, with a supportive faculty. Life was great.

 

* * *

 

When he got back to his apartment Bucky checked his school email. Fury had emailed the faculty with the subject line “New Hire."

Someone got the Erskine job, finally. Bucky smiled, and clicked on the email.

“Oh, fuck,” he breathed, feeling like his guts had fallen upwards into his chest.

Staring back at Bucky in the email body was a picture the hot as hell guy from a few weeks ago. It was clearly a professional headshot judging by the quality of the picture. Definitely not a selfie. Bucky let his eyes drag over Steve’s eyes, his jawline, his full lips, before tearing his eyes away to the context of the email. Fury had written _Please welcome Steve Rogers to Shield’s faculty! Steve holds an MA in English and a BFA in Art from Brooklyn College and a PhD in Literature from New York University, and he will also be taking over Mr. Erskine’s post as the faculty head of the Art Club. He will be moving to Barkstead in July, please make him feel welcome!_

No sooner had Bucky, dazed, closed the email from Fury than another one popped up, this time from Nat.

_Ohhhhhh shit! Take him off the list!_

Bucky crashed his head down onto his desk.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Barkstead is made up, but it is basically a cover for Farmington, CT. It is bucolic AF, and the Starbucks is legit a walk away from my HS campus. 
> 
> One of our beginning of year traditions was a skit with the seniors making fun of the students, and an end of year tradition was the freshmen making fun of the seniors. I swapped it, just because it would be easier and the jokes would land better.


	2. I Know Him

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shield's graduation day, and Bucky gets an unexpected email.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Pierce is a dick.

_Sam: So dude_

_Sam: I know the new guy  
_ _Sam: Steve_

_WHAT_

_Sam: Yep_  
_Sam: We were in some gen-eds together freshman year at NYU before he transferred back to Brooklyn College, stayed in touch for a little while afterward_  
 _Sam: Haven’t heard from him in a while, though_

_That’s awesome!_

_Sam: Yeah! He’s really great_  
Sam: I think he knows Sharon’s cousin too? Don’t quote me on that  
Sam: Smart as hell, but kind of a punk

_How so?_

_Sam: He REALLY cares about doing the right thing_   
_Sam: And about standing up for people_   
_Sam: To the point where he may have punched some people_

_Like Hamilton?_   
_I may have punched him_   
_It’s a blur sir_   
_He handles the financials_   
_You punched the bursar?_

_Sam: I TOLD YOU WE BANNED HAMILTON REFERENCES_

_I AM NOT THROWING AWAY MY SHOT_

_Sam: FUUUUUUUUUU_

Bucky was very proud of his ability to hide a full tilt freakout. So his completely normal response to Sam’s revelation - plus the clever sleight of hand with the _Hamilton_ reference to get Sam off topic - helped to cover the tracks of his actual feelings, which could be summed up by the primal scream Bucky made into his pillow later that evening.

 

* * *

  

“Didn’t the new guy say he wanted to talk to you about combining clubs or something?” Nat re-racked her weights as Bucky slid out from the leg press.

He nodded as he shook out his quads. “That’s just something all the applicants say when they want to make a good impression though.”

“Why do you have to be so defeatist and pessimistic?” Nat asked. She ruffled Bucky’s hair, then made a face as she wiped the sweat on her leggings. “When I say that, that should be a warning sign. I’m _Russian_.”

“Yeah, I know,” Bucky admitted, as checked the weights on the hip abductor, “but this is...eh. He’s just so damn hot. I don’t know how to start that conversation.”

“Eventually you’re going to have to address that lack of confidence. Your self-esteem has an Alex-sized hole in it.” Nat’s voice was mild, but it belied her deeper concern. _Everyone_ had noticed how bad things turned out with Alex, but Bucky had ignored all of it. He had been in love, after all. Things could be fixed, or at least ignored -

“I’m fine,” he insisted. Nat stood up from her perfectly executed sumo squat, never taking her eyes off Bucky. “Eventually you’ll figure out that I know you’re full of shit, right?” Again with the amused lilt barely hiding her deep, mama-bear love for him. Bucky was damn thankful to have her in his life.

“Yeah. But!” Bucky stood up, taking some arm weights with him. He swayed his arms dramatically. “It is NOT THIS DAY!”

“Oh, lord,” Nat rolled her eyes, but she was smiling again. “Sprint drill time, Gandalf.”

“Um, that was not Gandalf, that was _Aragorn_ , you uneducated swine.”

“Well I don’t know, I never saw the movies.”

“A fact I still have not forgiven you for.”

There was just enough of a laugh in the exchange that Natasha dropped the conversation. _Good._

 

* * *

 

“Ugh. Sorry I’m late.”

Bucky took one look at his sister’s wet, bedraggled hair and spotty t-shirt over the Skype screen and found it very difficult not to burst into giggles. “Mikey didn’t want a bath tonight?” he asked innocently.

“Never have children,” Becca deadpanned. “We have to go to the IKEA to get a new baby tub for Danny and I might ask if we can just exchange a three-year-old as currency.”

She looked completely exhausted, but Bucky knew his younger sister had wanted to be a mom since she understood how babies were made, and there was nothing she wouldn’t do for her three kids or her husband, Henry Proctor. Sometimes, though? Sometimes, having three boys under the age of seven in the house was a little much, especially since she was only 29.

Becca had married Henry right out of college - they had dated since middle school, so it wasn’t a huge surprise when they got engaged. James had arrived a year and a half later, followed in short order by Michael. Daniel, however...Danny had been a struggle. It had taken two years of trying to get him. Bucky would never forget the happiness in Becca’s face when she told him she was pregnant again as long as he lived.

“Where is the little guy, by the way?” he asked. “It’s been a while. He’s probably gotten so big.”

The computer screen swung away from Becca to Henry, who sat in the recliner next to the couch. He was patting Danny’s back, who clearly had just gotten fed; glossy milk shone on his mouth, and his face was glazed over with the satisfaction of a good meal.

Once again, Bucky felt like he’d been stung, but he covered it up. “He’s perfect, Becks,” he murmured, waving hello to Henry, who nodded in reply. “I can’t wait to visit next month.”

“The plan is to have you babysit one of the nights you’re here, if that’s okay?” Becca let out a long, pleading sigh, the one she used to get out of trouble when she and Bucky were kids. “Please, Buck. I need to go out in public and be around humans that know how to take baths by themselves.”

“You offended by that, Henry?” Bucky quietly laughed.

“Nah. It’s accurate.” Henry looked over Danny’s shoulder to meet Becca’s gaze, and there it was again - that little itch at the corner of Bucky’s psyche. Something in his marrow snuck up and whispered _Jealous?_ Evanescent but definitely there.

“Yeah. That’s totally fine.” Bucky smiled broadly as the camera was pushed back over to Becca, who had pushed her hair back into a messy bun that nearly matched Bucky’s. “Just let me know so I can plan ahead.”

“Awesome. Okay. Tell me about your classes!”

The conversation continued until Bucky noticed Becca’s shoulders were drooping. “Becks. Go to bed,” he encouraged.

Becca nodded. “Okay. Henry, I’m gonna take a little bit of a nap, then.”

“Nap? Nah. You’re down for the night. I’ve got Danny.”

“You sure?” But Becca was already yawning. Over her shoulder Bucky could see photos in beautiful vintage frames on the sofa table. One was of the entire Barnes and Barnes-Proctor family at Coney Island four years ago, when Becca was eight months pregnant with Mikey. Bucky had gotten a wicked farmer’s tan that day but it had been worth it  - James, two at the time, had been amazed by the immensity of the ocean. It had been totally adorable to play with him and make drip castles. It wasn’t so adorable when Jamie decided he wanted to _eat_ the sandcastles, and ended up with sand on every inch of his little body.

“Everything okay, Bucky Bear?” Becca asked, using the nickname she’d given him when she was ten, sticking him with the nickname he would never get sick of (with the “Bear” thankfully excised).

“Yeah. I’m good.” Bucky really meant it this time. “Go to sleep. I love you.”

“Love you too, Bucky.”

The last thing Bucky saw before the Skype screen cut out was Danny lifting his head from Henry’s shoulder and smiling, before spitting up all over Henry’s shirt.

 

* * *

 

_“Oh my God, that was classic,” Alex roared. The Volvo pulled out of the lot with Bucky at the wheel. Bucky didn’t respond. The vice-grip in his chest crunched the words away from his mouth._

_“Seriously. So fucking funny.” Alex kicked his legs up onto the dashboard. Bucky never did that with Alex’s car, and Alex’s car wasn’t as nice. “Like, you saw the cones, right?”_

_“Yes.”_

_“And you saw the parking lot officials waving at us to follow the cones, right?”_

_Bucky’s grip on the wheel turned his knuckles white. “Yes. I just couldn’t see that clearly. I don’t have my contacts in.”_

_  
_ _“Yeah, but like, a blind person could see it.” Alex kept laughing._

 _They had gone to see the New York Red Bulls play the New England Revolution at Gillette Stadium, home of the Revs (and the New England Patriots, when they weren’t deflating balls and being assholes...Bucky was and would always be a Giants fan). The parking lot outside Patriots Place had been pitch black, save for some stadium lights carrying over. Bukcy had seen the security guard waving them into the correct traffic line and his anxiety had caused him to make a much bigger turn than necessary. They’d missed the lot exit, and knocked over a few cones. Alex had_ howled _with amusement._

_Bucky kept his eyes on the road as they headed back to their hotel. The weekend had been a Christmas present from Alex to Bucky. “I think it would be good for us to get a weekend away,” Alex had told Bucky. Bucky had nodded, smiled, and pushed down the disappointment that he wasn’t getting an engagement ring for Christmas. Not like they’d ever talked about it (well, Bucky had tried to bring it up)._

_Alex wasn’t drunk, but he was definitely buzzed, thanks to the two pints of Guinness Bucky had bought him at the match. It was more surprising that he wasn’t wasted at this point of the night. Usually Alex used outings like this - and the promise that Bucky would drive home - as an excuse to get blackout._

_Five minutes into the drive Bucky felt Alex’s fingers scrape the nape of his neck. “Hey, there…” Alex crooned. It was a brief touch but one that sent a zip down Bucky’s spine, circling his tailbone in a rotary of current. “What’s up, baby?” Alex’s voice was smooth and curious. The pitch that made Bucky fall into bed with the guy in the first place. In spite of everything that had gone wrong (so much, so much had gone wrong, was still going wrong), Alex was still so goddamn sexy. The first time they fucked, Bucky had shaken apart in Alex’s arms, and Alex had laughed that insufferably rough laugh and kissed his tears away._

_They don’t do that anymore._

_Bucky took a deep breath. “I didn’t appreciate you making me fun of me. I couldn’t see the lines on the lot.” Bucky forced his own voice into a line._

_In an ideal world, Alex would nod, press a kiss to Bucky’s hand like he used to, and murmur a heart-felt apology. They’d get back to the hotel and have mind-blowing, intimate sex all night, the kind that comes from two years together and the future before them._

_This wasn’t an ideal world._

_“You’re kidding, right?” Alex was incredulous. “Babe. Seriously.”_

_“I don’t appreciate getting made fun of,” Bucky repeated, feeling all of the blood rushing to his fingers and toes, making him feel dizzy and unfocused. He trained his eyes on the road, blinking hard._

_“Good God. Bucky.” Alex reclined his seat, tone thoroughly amused and thick, like the words in his throat were still fighting their way out. Like his body even rejected the cold, clinical dismissal of Bucky’s feelings, but the part of Alex that honestly didn’t care about Bucky anymore was pushing them all out. “What do you want me to do, huh?” Mocking._

_“Apologize?” Bucky wished his voice didn’t sound so fucking small, but this was an improvement. A year ago this conversation wouldn’t have happened. Bucky would have remained silent, then probably cried in the shower afterwards._

_But the ability to speak for himself and to demand what he wanted, needed to get rewarded. Right?_

_“Fuck no. I’m not apologizing. That was funny as fuck. You just need to learn how to take a joke,” Alex asserted. He closed his eyes. “Wake me up when we get to the hotel.”_

_He was asleep well before the tears spilled down Bucky’s cheeks._

 

* * *

 

Graduation day at Shield Academy dawned cold and clear - a rare delight for early June. Bucky met Nat, Clint, Sam, and Maria Hill (head of Shield’s Security and Sam’s wife) for breakfast at the Brass Key, a small family-run diner close to Bucky’s apartment building in West Barkstead. The diner held a variety of delicious options, good strong coffee, and they gave Shield teachers a discount. There was another place, Stanley’s, that they really wanted to go to, but it was already slammed. The Brass Key was a great runner up in any case.

“Damn fine cup of coffee,” Bucky cracked as the waitress came around with espressos and lattes for the table.

Sam groaned. “Catching up on _Twin Peaks_?”

“Hell yes. Now that the school year is over I can finally start watching the third season!” Bucky clapped his hands together in glee.

“My god, you’re such a nerd,” Nat said, terribly fond.

The conversation drifted from summer plans, to fall workloads (Bucky had gotten approval from Fury to do his Russian History Unit, a development that maybe saw Bucky dance like MC Hammer in his apartment), to possible summertime hangout times for faculty. Sam and Maria had already volunteered to host everyone for a weekend at their beach house on the Connecticut shoreline. It had become a tradition for all of them to relax, catch up, sunbathe, and watch a variety of fireworks on the water.

“After graduation we’ll be having people over for beers and grilling, if anyone’s interested,” Clint announced, halfway through the meal. Bucky nodded. “I’m in. Nat? Want me to bring over some Two Roads? I’ve got some of their Summer Jam.”

“Nah, that’s okay.” Nat had an indecipherable look on her face. Bucky filed it away for later.

As they were headed out the door to get to the commencement activities, Nat pulled Bucky aside. “So. Um. We’re trying for a baby this summer.” Her eyes sparkled with emotion.

Bucky opened his mouth to scream, but Nat shoved her hand over his lips. “Don’t tell anyone. Don’t say a word.”

Bucky, helpless with happiness and trapped by Nat’s palm, just vigorously nodded. His face probably looked like misshapen putty until they got outside and he could hug both her and Clint without the others noticing. “I’m so proud of you guys,” he whispered to them. “You two are so great together. You just...you give me a lot of hope, you know? That that’s out there.”

“It is out there. Don’t worry.” Nat kissed him on the cheek. “Now get going, you’ll be late.”

Bucky wasn’t a department head, but a few weeks before in a final faculty meeting he’d volunteered to corral the seniors into the amphitheatre outside the Kirby for the final graduation photo. It wasn’t too difficult - the students were all excited, but they knew how to behave during an important event, so they were easily maneuvered into their spots for the photographer. Bucky managed to find and hug Kamala before they all lined up for the procession to the main lawn on campus, between the Selvig Science Center (or the SSC as it was known to the school body) and the Edwin Jarvis Library. Kamala looked stunning in a white long sleeved dress that was looked light enough so she wouldn’t get too overheated in the June sunshine, with a white hijab accented in gold piping to frame her face. Bucky remembered the shy, tentative freshman he met during their first advisee meeting, and how much Kamala had blossomed since then. It made his eyes water. They had come into the school together, he as a new teacher, she as a student, and now she was heading off to the Ivy League. It was almost too much for Bucky to bear.

“I’m so proud of you,” Bucky murmured, feeling his student stiffen and knew Kamala wasn’t too far away from crying herself. “You better come visit me, okay?”

“You know I will!” Kamala said it like it wasn’t even a question, like she was insulted Bucky would even ask. “Thank you again, Mr. Barnes. In case I don’t get to see you afterwards.”

Bucky managed a brief nod as Kamala pulled away and got back in line with the rest of the senior class. He pulled out his phone to check his appearance. Thankfully his face didn’t look too raw, but it definitely looked like he’d been tearing up. In seconds, as if he’d conjured her up out of the air, Natasha appeared next to him with a Kleenex. “Here you go. Figured you’d need this.”

“Thanks,” Bucky told her, accepting the tissue and wiping his eyes. “You look gorgeous, by the way.”

“Why thank you, Mr. Barnes,” Nat smirked, smoothing down the lines of her pressed white tuxedo jumpsuit. Her wine-colored hair was swept up in a loose chignon, and her heels were high navy pumps. She was a perfect balance of gender, and Nat liked it like that.

“You don’t look too bad yourself, by the way.” Nat reached up, slender fingers walking over Bucky’s cheek to tuck an errant strand of hair behind his ear.

The tradition at Shield Academy graduations was for the girls and women to wear white (dresses or pants, didn’t matter), while the men and boys wore blue suits. Bucky tended to wear the same navy dress suit every year since he started teaching at Shield four years ago, but he’d managed to find a few upgrades this year - a new dress shirt, first of all, in a slightly darker shade of blue, and a new tie to match. He’d even gone out and gotten his shoes polished, since they were a light mahogany and therefore easily clocked for any scuff marks.

Together, they assembled in the front of the line with the rest of the faculty according to department. Bucky managed to find Charles Xavier, the European History teacher, talking with Ororo Munro, the African-American Studies expert, and lined up behind them. “Ten bucks says Fury says something about living up to the lofty expectations of Shield alumni,” he murmured. Ororo’s husband, T’Challa Bashenga, the sophomore/AP chemistry teacher, grinned deviously. “That’s a foolish bet, James. The odds of that happening are extremely high.” He adjusted the cuffs on his gorgeous sky-blue suit.

“I’d rather put money on when Phil’s going to start crying first,” Ororo said, placing an arm around her husband. “He always loses it right around the time the a cappella group starts.”

“I disagree. It’s when Fury starts his speech - at least, that’s when he tears up,” Charles whispered.

“That’s why this is a fun bet to make,” Bucky replied, chuckling low. He gave T’Challa a high-five. “I’ll see you later, ok?”

“Great.” T’Challa kissed Ororo then made his way over to the science department, where he lined up along with Tony and AP Physics instructor Jane Foster. Her husband, Thor Odinson, head coach of the Shield hockey team, was positioned with Clint, Sam, and the rest of the athletics department.

The white tent of the Shield graduation ceremony billowed lightly in the late morning breeze. Parents and alumni milled about the premises in anticipation of the day’s events. Most of them, too, were in the Shield tradition dress code. This was one of those days when Bucky had to sit back (or stand back, since he was walking into the tent) and marvel at how lucky he was, that he got to teach at this wonderful place full of so many great people and students.

Nick Fury opened the day’s events with a speech exhorting the excellence of the 2017 senior class. Bucky felt a tap on his shoulder and turned around to meet Charles’s triumphant gaze. “Look at Coulson.”

Sure enough, Phil was blowing his nose. Bucky sighed, and opened his wallet.

 

* * *

 

That night, Bucky headed over to Clint and Nat’s on-campus house for their post-graduation barbecue. Everyone showed up in the same outfits they’d worn to the ceremony, which made it look like the strangest mass wedding of all time. “Who’s marrying whom?” Bucky joked to Clint.

“I think we’d have to move to Utah in order to make any marriage between the three of us legal,” Clint said.

“Eh, I don’t know. Your wife is shifty. She’d probably be able to do something to manipulate the law.”

“Well, yeah, but don’t say that too loud. She’ll get caught by the KGB.”

“That doesn’t exist anymore, Дорогая моя*,” Nat responded as she breezed by with a glass of water for her and Tito’s and soda on the rocks for Clint. “You want anything, Buck?”

“Gimme the Two Roads I bought.”

“What is this, a specialty package store?” But Nat was smirking as she fished around in the refrigerator until she found the Summer Jam.

“Have you talked to Steve yet?” she murmured, as she popped the cap off the bottle before handing it to Bucky. Bucky shook his head before taking a sip of the sweet summer ale. “I might get in touch with him when he moves in. Don’t want to overwhelm the guy. He’s probably got a lot on his plate with moving from Brooklyn and figuring out what he wants to do for the fall.”

Nat nodded. “Makes sense. But I think it would be good to contact him. Just to see what he wants to do with the collaboration. Plus it’ll be good for you to, you know…”

“Nat,” Bucky said wearily, before taking a long pull from his drink. “We’ve talked about this.”

“It’s been two years, Buck. Gotta get moving on sooner or later.” Nat’s face was kind, but her tone was firm.

Bucky’s chest felt fiery, like acid was burning him up from the inside. “Drop it, Romanov.”

Nat held up her hands, acquiescing, and disappeared into the kitchen to find Clint, who had wandered away mid-conversation to get more pretzels.

The in-house music dimmed to a dull hum of easy jazz as Bucky walked outside to get some fresh air. His chest was still a little tight from what Nat had said. Yeah, he needed to move on. Maybe find someone new. Everything in him wanted to find someone and settle down. But -

“Hey, Buck.” Darcy was sitting on the curb, smoking a clove cigarette. “Want one? I never smoke these things but Wade had some and he’s...persuasive.”

“Nah, I’m good. Gave up a few years back.” But Bucky sat down next to her anyway. “What’s up?”

“Eh, not much, Glad the semester’s over, although you guys get the summer off. I have to stay up there and do paperwork from now until August.” Darcy blew rings of smoke up to the hazy June twilight, her perfectly applied red lipstick barely smudging on the cigarette.

“Yeah, it’s not really a ‘summer off,’ though. I’ve got a ton of shit to sort out between now and then,” Bucky said. He finished off his bottle of beer.

“Well,” Darcy mused, picking up her own glass of wine and swirling around the sediment at the bottom, “You’ll figure it out. You always do. That’s why we hired you.”

Darcy had just started out when Bucky was beginning the interview process at Shield. Bucky had immediately cottoned to her on his initial campus visit. Darcy was warm, professional, but with a sense of humor that was unexpectedly cutting. Bucky also loved babysitting Darcy’s cat, Loki, even though he could be a bit of an asshole. Darcy insisted that Bucky was the only person on faculty aside from her that could keep Loki calm. Bucky just figured it was because he bothered to keep the good cat food at his apartment.

The front door to the house opened up again and Jane and Thor came out. “We gotta get home. Thor’s parents are coming tomorrow and they’re going to want to get brunch at Stanley’s,” Jane said, poking Thor in the side. They were such a strange couple to Bucky when he’d first met them - Jane, tiny and intimidating because of her sheer brilliance, and her gigantic beefcake of a then-fiancé. But it became incredibly clear that they were perfect for each other. Jane had an undercurrent of joy and curiosity about the world as well as an incredibly kind heart - she was one of the first people aside from Nat to check up on Bucky after he and Alex and broken up. As for her husband, Thor had actually majored in physics in college before getting into coaching full-time, and his intellect rivaled his wife’s. Watching them debate major science news in the morning at the dining hall was both impressive and terrifying.

Jane nestled her head into the space between Thor’s ribs - if she were taller, it would have gone on his shoulder. “Another year over, eh babe?”

“Yep. Here’s to the next one.” Thor downed the rest of whatever arcane thing he forced T’Challa to stock in his pantry; if Bucky had put any money on it, it was mead or some kind of weird Norwegian ale. “If you’re in Barkstead over Fourth of July, let us know - we might work out some kind of carpool down to Niantic so we save gas money.”

“Sounds stellar,” Darcy said, clinking her glass with Thor’s. “I’ll bring that back into the house, if you want.”

“You’re just the Jill of all trades,” Bucky laughed.

“That’s why I’m good at my job, Buck-Buck.” Darcy gave Thor and Jane a hug. “Call me later, okay lady?” she threw over her shoulder to Jane as she walked back into the house. Bucky hugged them both too, and watched them walk across the street to their own place. Upper level Shield faculty were granted on campus housing in some of the school-reserved estates, donated by alumni to the school for faculty living quarters. It was Bucky’s long-term goal to get the Winter House, a beautiful old cabin up the hill from the Helicarrier. It was the perfect location - easy walking distance to all of his classrooms plus office, and the house itself was cozy and recently upgraded thanks to alumni donations, so he wouldn’t have to worry about paying for upkeep. No, Bucky didn’t have a private Pinterest board devoted to decorating ideas.

He stayed outside for a little bit, wishing he had taken Darcy up on her offer for a cigarette. The night was still pretty young, but he almost wished he could go home now, bottle up the memory of the day before anything happened to spoil it.

He pulled out his phone to check the time and scroll through any emails he may have received during dinner. A notification instantly popped up.

 _New Message from: Steve Rogers_ [ _rogers7486@gmail.com_ ](mailto:rogers7482@gmail.com)

Wait.

What.

_WHAT._

Bucky sat back down, hard, on the curb. His finger trembled a little bit as he swiped right to unlock the email.

 _From:_ [ _rogers7486@gmail.com  
_ ](mailto:rogers7482@gmail.com) _To:_ [ _james.barnes@shield.org_ ](mailto:james.barnes@shield.org)

_Hi, James!_

_I know today was graduation day at Shield so don’t worry about responding to this right away - it’s probably a busy day for everyone there. But I wanted to reach out about having a conversation about collaboration between our clubs and classes for the fall semester. I’ve got a lot of ideas...not that I want to overwhelm you or anything, plus your semester’s just ending and you probably don’t even want to think about teaching at the moment! But I figured I’d drop a line. I’m moving up to Barkstead from Brooklyn later this month, and I’d love to get together for coffee or drinks to chat about any ideas you’ve been kicking around._

_I hope you’re well, and I look forward to hearing from you._

_Steven Grant Rogers  
_ _Adjunct Prof., Brooklyn College_

Holy shit.

Bucky was not prepared for what erupted from his chest after reading that email. A desire to both dance and puke at the same time. Puke-dancing? Dance-puking?

His legs carried him back into the house. He was floating. Gliding. Flying. Still trying not to puke and dance.

“Nat!” he hissed, dragging his friend away from a clearly rowdy game of Cards Against Humanity. “I got an email from Steve!”

“What?!” Nat lit up. She even jumped up and down, which was definitely way more of an expression of excitement than she normally displayed, especially in the sky-high Louboutin shoes she was _improbably_ still wearing from earlier. “That’s awesome!”

“Yeah! He said he wants to get coffee when he moves in and talk about how we can collaborate on school projects.” Bucky was very proud of how normal he made his voice sound on that statement, when on the inside he wanted to shriek like a twelve year old.

Sam, passing by on his way to get a cupcake, let out a whoop of happiness. “Awesome, kid!”

“Oh, you talking about the new guy?” T’Challa swung past Sam to grab his own dessert. “I think Ro got an email from him, too.”

“Oh. Really.” Bucky’s heart plummeted.

“Yeah, something about their common pedagogical interests. I don’t know. She didn’t read it too closely.”

 _Then she doesn’t deserve to hang out with him, I read that email 12 times in five minutes, he’s mine, the sexy new guy is_ **_mine_ ** , Bucky wanted to shout. But he pulled himself together and smoothed his hair back in an effort to mime that he wasn’t going totally bonkers. “That’s probably a good idea, though...to get to know the staff,” he gritted out, deliberately avoiding Nat’s gaze. It was the Hairy Eyeball, he was sure of it.

“Definitely,” T’Challa replied, taking a bite of his peanut butter cupcake, a bit of humor in his eyes. “Although if I remember correctly, she didn’t mention anything about coffee. It was more about a faculty roundtable.”

“Oh _really_ ?” Natasha swung her arm around Bucky, nearly upsetting her drink in the process. “Well. It seems as if the only person who got invited for _coffee_ was ol’ Buckaroonie here.”

“You guys are the worst,” Bucky grumbled, but his heart was kicking back up to that exhilarated pace again.

 

* * *

  

The next morning Bucky woke up determined to answer Steve’s email. He had managed to survive the night relatively non-drunk, which meant he had been handed the sacred duty of walking everyone else back to their on-campus housing before calling the Uber to take him back to West Barnstead - he could’ve walked, but it was late, and he was sleepy from all the shepherding around he was doing. When he rolled over to check the time (9:30 AM, not too bad) he saw several messages from Nat.

NAT: You better email him  
_NAT: I’m going to bug you until you do  
_ NAT: JAMES BUCHANAN BARNES YOU WILL EMAIL HIM WHEN YOU WAKE UP

“Jesus,” Bucky grunted, then texted back _I’m about to email him, woman, slow your roll._

Natasha sent him back a string of eggplant emojis.

 

* * *

 

 _From:_ [ _james.barnes@shield.org  
_ ](mailto:james.barnes@shield.org) _To:_ [ _rogers7486@gmail.com_ ](mailto:rogers7482@gmail.com)

_Steve,_

_Hi! Great to hear from you._

Bucky stared at his computer for ten minutes. What the hell else was there to say that wouldn’t sound totally weird? _Hey, remember how we met that one day in my office when you were with Darcy? I still remember every single particle of clothing you had on and how your eyes crinkled up a little bit at the corners when you smiled, and also I would like to put my mouth all over your dick -_

Gah. Gahhhhh.

_Graduation was indeed yesterday, someone’s been doing their research!_

Oh good Lord. What was he, a presenter for _Sesame Street_?

Bucky deleted everything except the greeting and the _great to hear from you_. Outside, the honeybees that annually took up shop in the giant tree on his apartment complex lawn decided to throw themselves at Bucky’s window for the umpteenth time that week. It created a small symphony of banging noises and displeased buzzing through the glass.

Bucky rubbed his eyes and took a large gulp of coffee out of his _Adventure Time_ “Bacon Pancakes” mug.

 _Graduation Day is always fun if a little exhausting - sad to say goodbye to so many awesome students, but hey, more arrive in August!_ He typed.

Good. Easy. Keep the tone light.

_I’d love to get together and discuss possible collaborations in class syllabi or club work. Let me know when you’re moved in and settled, and we can set up a time to meet up. There’s a Starbucks close to campus that I frequent, as well as a few bars in the local area._

_Looking forward to chatting with you!_

_James Barnes_

Bucky sat back, cracked his knuckles. Professional, yet relaxed enough for a possibility of friendship. Seemed like a pretty good balance to strike.

Then, before he could talk himself out of it, Bucky wrote -

_PS. Since we’ll be working together, you can call me Bucky. I’ll explain over coffee._

After forwarding it to Nat to see if it merited her stamp of approval and receiving several thumbs-up emojis in response, Bucky sent the email. It took everything in him to not bounce around in his seat like a little kid who needed to pee.

 

* * *

 

He was working on a freelance article in Starbucks when he got a reply from Steve.

 _From:_ [ _rogers7486@gmail.com  
_ ](mailto:rogers7482@gmail.com) _To:_ [ _james.barnes@shield.org_ ](mailto:james.barnes@shield.org)

_Bucky, huh? Interesting. I’ll have to hear all about it when we meet up._

_My lease starts on the 22nd, so I’ll probably be in the area around June 20th at a hotel in Barkstead until I’m allowed to move in. Will you be around that week?_

Damn. Steve hadn’t even said it out loud, the fact he was using _Bucky_ made Bucky’s toes curl.

“Bad,” he chastised himself. He couldn’t carry around a perma-stiffy for a guy he was due to work with in close quarters. Besides, it’s not like he knew the guy yet. For all Bucky knew, he could be a crazy person. Or an asshole. Or a Trump Republican.

“Ah, shit,” he murmured, when he opened his calendar app on his phone and saw his schedule.

 

 _To:_ [ _rogers7486@gmail.com  
_ ](mailto:rogers7482@gmail.com) _From:_ [ _james.barnes@shield.org_ ](mailto:james.barnes@shield.org)

_I’m actually headed back to Brooklyn on the 18th for a few days to visit my parents. I’ll be back the 26th, though. That might work out better - it’ll give you some time to settle in!_

Within five minutes (not like Bucky was refreshing his emails, no way) Steve emailed back.

 

 _From:_ [ _rogers7486@gmail.com  
_ ](mailto:rogers7482@gmail.com) _To:_ [ _james.barnes@shield.org_ ](mailto:james.barnes@shield.org)

_That sounds great. Just let me know when you get back. Funny, huh - I’m leaving Brooklyn, and you’re going! I’m jealous._

 

 _To:_ [ _rogers7486@gmail.com  
_ ](mailto:rogers7482@gmail.com) _From:_ [ _james.barnes@shield.org_ ](mailto:james.barnes@shield.org)

_Well, I’ll be spending the majority of my time visiting with my sister’s family, so it’ll be less reliving the glory days of my Brooklyn youth and more changing dirty diapers._

 

 _From:_ [ _rogers7486@gmail.com  
_ ](mailto:rogers7482@gmail.com) _To:_ [ _james.barnes@shield.org_ ](mailto:james.barnes@shield.org)

_Awww. That’s sweet._

 

Bucky scrubbed his hand across his face. It definitely felt hot. _Fuck_ , he was so _fucked._

 

 _To:_ [ _rogers7486@gmail.com  
_ ](mailto:rogers7482@gmail.com) _From:_ [ _james.barnes@shield.org_ ](mailto:james.barnes@shield.org)

_Not so sweet when you’re covered in a kid’s puke_.

Bucky immediately wanted to die, because that’s _just_ the visual he wanted to convey in this conversation, of himself drenched in his nephew’s vomit.

 _From:_ [ _rogers7486@gmail.com  
_ ](mailto:rogers7482@gmail.com) _To:_ [ _james.barnes@shield.org_ ](mailto:james.barnes@shield.org)

_Haha! I bet! Well, have fun, and let me know when you’re back._

 

Bucky was not going to freak out.

Bucky was _not going to freak out_.

Oh, who was he kidding? Bucky was going to freak the fuck out.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Russian: “My Dear”


	3. Take a Break

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky goes home to Brooklyn for a few days, and geeks out a little bit more about Steve. Also he hooks up with an old college friend. Some CW in the end notes.

The train ride from New Haven Union Station to Grand Central was always a relatively boring trek. Sure, it was a bitch and a half to make the 45 minute drive from Barkstead to New Haven on a Friday morning, but the Metro-North fare was 35 dollars compared to the hundred bucks it would have cost Bucky to go out of Hartford’s station on Amtrak.

Bucky managed to snag a seat near the front of the train with an empty seat next to him. Usually on the trip Bucky swore to himself he’d get some work done, but he tended to forgo that in exchange for stalking Facebook and Twitter.

When the train groaned to life and lurched forward Bucky messaged his family’s group text: _On my way! Will be at Grand Central at 3_

_BECKS: Awesome I think Mom is coming to get you_

_MOM: Yes! I am so excited! Big day! *heart emojis*_

_DAD: oh boy_   
_DAD: Watch out Manhattan  
DAD: Freddie Barnes is inbound_

_MOM: HAHAHA_

_BECKS: The boys can’t wait to see you!_

Becca followed up that message with a video of her oldest son, Jamie, tearing through the Proctor family kitchen yelling “Uncle Bucky’s coming today!” The camera then swung to Mikey loitering off near the fridge, probably about to sneak a bite of lemon sorbet. From off-camera, Becca said “Are you excited that Uncle Bucky is coming to visit?” Mikey looked up at the phone, eyes wide, and whispered reverently, “Oh my God!”

“Don’t say ‘God,’ Mikey!” Becca’s voice admonished. Also off camera, Danny shrieked.

Bucky nearly choked on his coffee. Damn he loved those kids. _Amazing. <3 <3 <3 _he texted back.

 

* * *

 

Winifred “Freddie” Barnes was a full body hugger. Anyone she knew well, she hugged like they were family. Anyone who was family, she embraced like she hadn’t seen them in a thousand years. So when Bucky made his way up the steps from his train to the main lobby of Grand Central, he knew he was in for a hug beyond all normal levels.

“There he is!” Freddie shouted. She wore the same athletic leggings and neon-pink pullover that told Bucky she’d gone to spinning that morning. Freddie Barnes was an athletic woman - Bucky had inherited his love of fitness and healthy living from her. He drew the line at getting his own juicer, though, despite how keenly Freddie urged him to get one (“It will honestly change your life, James, I swear, it totally cleared up my adult onset acne”).

“Ahhh, hi Mom,” Bucky squeaked, stiffening as his mother’s arms squeezed the breath out of him from the ribcage up. Despite the discomfort from the tight hold, Bucky could still smell the coconut shampoo she used and it instantly reminded him of home. Brooklyn was his _real_ home. Sure, Barkstead was great. Amazing, even. But it wasn’t New York City.

“Are you eating enough? Is Natasha putting you on one of her weird beef jerky diets?” Freddie poked Bucky’s sides, making him squirm away from her and drop his bag. “No! You know the drill - I always thin out at the end of the semester.”

“Yeah. Sounds about right.” Freddie had been a teacher in the New York public school system before retiring two years ago. She knew what Bucky was dealing with, maybe on an even bigger scale. “You look better than you did at this time last year, so that’s good.” A quick onceover of her eyes on him told Bucky he was due for a round of questioning about how he was _feeling_ , a conversation he was not looking forward to. Thankfully that would wait for later, as Freddie put an arm around him and directed him to the subway station. “Let’s get going - we’ve got a half hour ride to Brooklyn and there may be some visitors at home!”

 

* * *

 

“BUCKY!”

Jamie and Mikey Proctor barreled down the hallway, little balls of terror in New York Yankees shirts. Bucky absolutely adored his nephews, but after a two-and-a-half hour train ride and another half hour on the subway with his over-energetic mother, he was looking forward to a little bit of downtime before dinner with Becca that evening. But that wasn’t possible with a four and six year old in the house; Jamie and Mikey slammed into Bucky’s legs with the fury of a Mack truck. Bucky nearly hit the floor but a quick hand out to the wall kept him upright. “Guys!” He got down on one knee to hug them tight. “How’ve ya been?”

“Good,” Mikey said shyly, eyes darting to Freddie who was still in the doorway. Becca’s middle son was a little more socially awkward, even when around family. Jamie had the opposite problem - he dove into life head-first, sometimes at the expense of his own safety. He settled down at the feet of his namesake and yelled at top volume about his newest class projects and how his entire first grade class was going to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens as an end of year field trip. “And then Mommy said that I could have a Spider-Man themed birthday party this year, but I think I want to do Pokemon instead, I have over 300 cards, Bucky, I want to show all of them to you,” he ranted.

“Okay, stinkers, let Bucky get up so he can drop off his bag.” Becca came around the corner with a huge grin on her face. “Hey, big brother.”

Bucky gently deposited Jamie on the floor and wrapped his little sister in a hug that rivaled his mom’s at the station. “How’re you holding up?” he asked quietly.

“Better,” Becca said, just as soft, into the skin of Bucky’s cheek. “We’ll talk about it at dinner.”

“Excellent. Where’s the little guy?”

“Napping, thank God,” Freddie chimed in, toeing her shoes off in the mud room. “That boy is a cat-napper like you were, James. Twenty minutes, tops, and getting him to go down is a holy terror.”

“Which is why you aren’t going to see him until tomorrow.” Becca winked, and motioned to Bucky’s duffel bag. “Now go drop off your stuff. We have dinner reservations to get to.”

 

* * *

 

“Well, isn’t this fancy,” Bucky teased.

“Eat shit, Buck,” Becca said good-naturedly. “You love this place.”

“Hell yes I do.”

Becca had made reservations at the Brooklyn Brewing Company since all Bucky could talk about over Skype in the weeks leading up to his trip home was how badly he wanted one of their tasting flights. Once they got settled with their drinks (IPA for Bucky, stouts for Becca) and a variety of snack plates, Bucky studied his sister’s face. “So. The medication is good so far?”

“Yeah! I mean, it took a while to kick in. I kept calling Doctor Medina asking him ‘how long does Prozac take to work before it actually, like, works?’ But after about, uh, four or five weeks it started to help a lot. I felt less anxious.”

“No more calling people crying hysterically, right?” Bucky said seriously.

“No. Well, not as often.” Becca laughed a little, but her eyes told Bucky she understood what he meant. The months after having Danny weren’t too great - Danny had been born with a few bad allergies, and that combined with Becca’s predisposition for depression sent her into a mild tailspin. It had taken her until Danny was about seven months old to pull out of it and go back to her psychiatrist, and she finally had gotten back on medication.

She certainly sounded a lot better than she had in recent months, a source of real relief to Bucky. But her hands were still worrying and creasing a cocktail napkin. “Becks. Spill it,” he intoned.

“I just keep reading about all of these stupid moms posting online about how moms just need to suck it up, and, like, not give in to that kind of anxiety and shitty feelings, and that’s just such bullshit.” Becca’s voice sounded like it had all those times in college when she’d gotten furious at the biphobic people in Bucky’s program. She popped an arancini ball into her mouth. “Why would you even say something like that, you know? Like what the fuck?”

Bucky squeezed his fork hard. “Fuck that noise. If they want to spread that garbage, let them, but don’t let it get to you. Just because they didn’t experience postpartum depression doesn’t mean it isn’t real.”

“That’s what I said! Well, that, and that they could go eat a bag of dicks.” Becca beamed, and Bucky cracked up. He hadn’t seen his little sister this happy in a long, long time. “Seriously,” he said, raising his glass, “If you’re happy, who gives a fuck. To not giving a fuck!”

“Hear, hear!” Becca exclaimed, clinking glasses with him. As they sipped, she kept her eyes on Bucky. Never a good sign. “Okay. So. Speaking of being happy.”

“Ugh, I knew this was going to happen,” Bucky groaned. “I’m fine, Becks.”

“You’re fine, or you’re pretending to be fine while secretly you’re not fine at all.”

Bucky paused and watched his sister, watched her perceptive grey eyes on his. There were very few people in this world who knew him as well as Becca Barnes-Proctor did. One of them was Natasha, of course. The other had been… “Alex’s team came to Shield a few times this year,” he said, letting his shoulders relax to a slump. “Didn’t go to any of the games but I saw him on campus a few times.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“What would I have said?”

“That you hoped he could eventually get to the point where he could jump up his own ass?”

Bucky chuffed out a laugh. “Yeah, funny. No. I didn’t talk to him at all. Couldn’t even look at him.”

“Well, he treated you like shit. Give it time. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Honestly?” Bucky leaned back in his chair and took in the room. Took in the exposed brick, the warmth of the colors in the main tasting area, the random cat that lazed on the register. “I’m doing a lot better. My friends have been great, I love my students, I love my job. It’s just…”

“Are you getting the itch?” Becca said it without judgment. She just kept watching him. Bucky ate a tortilla chip smothered in guacamole.

“Yeah. I think I am. I mean...I think I want to try again.”

“That’s awesome to hear, Bucky.” Becca covered Bucky’s hand with hers, squeezed it. “You deserve someone awesome. Boy or girl.”

“At this point, I will take anyone as long as they’re breathing,” Bucky snarked.

“Okay, I don’t need to know how horny you are, thanks.”

“I’ve seen you breastfeed all three of your kids, Becca, it's not like this is crossing any boundary lines,” Bucky retorted.

“That is a thoroughly non-sexual act!” Bucky snapped, horrified.

“I don’t know, have you looked at Pornhub lately? You’d make a fortune.” Bucky said it as sweetly as he possibly could, but he still definitely earned the tortilla chip that went flying at his face.

 

* * *

 

_Alex rolled off Bucky and headed to the bathroom to clean off. Bucky looked down at his chest, at the silver-white threads of his come mixing with the sweat, and called out, “Towel?”_

_No answer._

_After thinking about using his own shirt (for about two seconds before the thought grossed him out too much), Bucky managed to get most of the come off with a wet wipe from the pack Alex kept in his bedside table. When Alex got back into the bed he sprawled out on top of the covers, away from Bucky._

_Bucky felt...well. A lot of things. Exhaustion. A little emptiness because he always bottomed with Alex; it wasn't even a question. A vague dissatisfaction. A weightlessness- almost like he’d been dropped from a plane and was now idly wondering where the fuck his parachute went._

_Alex’s house, located on the edge of Triskelion School’s campus, was all space and straight lines. While Bucky liked the cluttered, cozy feel of his own apartment in Barkstead, Alex’s place bordered on sterile. When they first started dating, Alex had laughed when Bucky joked about needing to be scrubbed down before entering the premises, lest he bring in the common plague - then Alex had picked up up and pinned him against an eggshell-colored wall, kissing him so deeply he forgot what month it was._

_He loved Alex. Loved his pragmatism, his stealthy sense of humor. The way he was able to relax around Bucky (when he_ could _relax). Loved his calm and his discipline._

_They were at Alex’s after a major gala on the Triskelion campus honoring Alex and his English department’s contributions to the larger academic field. Shield teachers were encouraged to keep up with their academic scholarship but it wasn’t a required part of their employment. At Triskelion it was mandatory to publish at least one article a year, and Alex had been pumping out books and essays at a freakish pace._

_The gala had been extravagant, filled with food and champagne. Usually gatherings like this at Shield were reserved for when someone crazy famous was coming to campus, like that one time everyone thought the Obamas were going to swing through and it ended up not happening. The headmaster of Triskelion, Arnim Zola, had pulled Alex and Bucky off to the side (after Bucky had quickly tossed some shrimp down his throat) and raved about Alex’s latest paper, a study of queer themes in medieval bestiary texts. He then trained his beady eyes on Bucky. “What have you published recently, James?”_

_“James works at Shield - they aren’t required to publish every year,” Alex cut in breezily. Bucky blinked at him, then found his voice. “Actually, I am reworking my Masters thesis. It’s a study of current members of Russian government who were operatives for the KGB and the connections they still have to Russian shadow agencies.”_

_“You’ve been working on that since you got hired at Shield, babe,” Alex shrugged in reply. “Maybe speed it up?” Bucky had fallen silent._  


_“I’m almost done with that book proposal,” Bucky said now in the violet haze of the bedroom dark. Alex turned his gaze to meet Bucky; only four years older, Alex’s face was already taking on a kind of craggy handsomeness - a blond rock face and just as rigid. “Very nice,” he demurred, swiping a hand across his face. “What, it’ll be ready in two years?”_

_“Fuck off,” Bucky said, hardly the energy left for venom. The night whispered what he really wanted to say, carried on the pungent scent of the goldenrod trees that swayed outside Alex’s bedroom window. In the light from the parking lots Bucky could make out the shine of Alex’s Chelsea FC framed poster. Bucky supported Liverpool, to Alex’s continued annoyance. “Alex?” he whispered._

_“Hm?” Alex’s eyes were already drooping off to the side._

_“When you think about the future...what do you think about?” A horribly constructed sentence; Bucky’s high school debate teacher would have slapped him in the stocks for that one. But it was late, Bucky was tired and fucked out, and some things were too important to wait for grammatical perfection._

_There were three seconds of cricket-filled non-silence. Alex adjusted his body to slide further down his pillow. He didn’t look at Bucky. “Hmm. I don’t. Not really. I live in the moment. You know?” He said it effortlessly, like it was obvious._

_“Yeah, but...like-”_

_“Are you asking if I put you in my future? Because the answer is the same.” Alex exhaled loudly, just this side of perturbed. “I don’t think about that stuff. You know that. Planning ahead stresses me out.”_

_Bucky stared up at the ceiling, trying to avoid the multiple times Alex had minutely flipped out because things hadn’t gone exactly to plan. “How-”_

_“You know, I could get hit by a bus tomorrow. I choose to spend time with you. I think that should be enough for you, eh?” Alex rolled, back facing Bucky. “Night.”_

_When Bucky managed to fall asleep (much, much later) the last conscious thought in his head before Morpheus took over was_ What the fuck am I doing with this man?

 

* * *

 

Bucky woke up on the third day of his trip home in someone else’s bed with a raging backache. Jasper Sitwell was an old fuckbuddy from Columbia; whenever Bucky was back in town (if they were both single) they made a point of getting together to talk teaching and life over some drinks and food. Last night was the first time since last summer that they had taken that conversation from the bar to the sheets.

Bucky rolled over to check the time. 7:30AM. “Fuck me,” he said hoarsely.

“Nope. I’m gonna need to stretch first,” Sitwell rumbled, turning over in bed to give Bucky a playful, smacking kiss right between the shoulder blades.

Bucky barked out a laugh. “I wish. I gotta get going. Meeting my Dad in Manhattan for brunch and then we’re going to the Yankees game.”

“Fun fun!” Sitwell sighed into Bucky’s neck, and Bucky sat back to allow a moment of spooning. “Speaking of fun…”

“Yeah.” Bucky smiled. Last night had definitely scratched a huge itch. In the year and change following his breakup with Alex, Bucky didn’t want to be with _anybody_ , man or woman, no matter how many of them Nat, Becca, or his mother threw at him. Recently, though, he’d been trying. He didn’t want to go into a commitment just because he missed sex, though, and while he wasn’t sure if he was ready to give his heart to anyone just yet, Bucky was human. And horny.

So, itch scratched.

Sitwell was fun in bed. He was confident, attentive, and liked to laugh. They always had fun together, in or out of the sack. The walk of shame wouldn’t even be that bad - Bucky had brought a hoodie and the air was cooler, so he’d be able to walk to the subway without anyone clocking the massive hickey that was forming on his collarbone.

“Text me next time you come home, okay?” Sitwell yawned, eyes fluttering as Bucky yanked his jeans back on. The guy was at least a quarter of the way back to sleep. Bucky murmured in agreement, then stooped to give Sitwell a kiss on the cheek.

“You’re great,” he said quietly. “I hope you know that. And I hope you can work it out with that guy you were telling me about. Rawlings, was it?”

“Rollins.” Even through the sleep creases, Sitwell looked dreamy-eyed. “And yeah. I hope so. He comes back from DC next week - we’re gonna talk then.”

“And you promise I wasn’t getting in the way of anything -”

“No!” Sitwell arched his back, a hard pop echoing across his spine. “I promise. We aren’t dating. I just think we should be.”

“Okay, good. I’m not some homewrecking ho,” Bucky said, with a wink.

“Well, you take a dick like one.”

Bucky slapped Sitwell on the ass. “I’ll talk to you later.”

He liked Sitwell. He was funny and caring and they got along well together. But what they had was casual fun. It wasn’t the type of connection Bucky wanted. The sort of tether that makes one look across to someone else and go “oh, there you are.”

And Bucky quickly realized he needed coffee, because he would _not_ be comparing his love life to Kurt and Blaine on _Glee._

 

* * *

 

Bucky’s father George shared his son’s height and hair color but that’s where the similarities ended. Bucky inherited his face and grey-blue eyes from Freddie. George Barnes was rounder, with darker eyes, and he was never dressed in less than a sharp suit or a crisp white button down with dark denim. He’d worked as a team doctor for professional men’s basketball for 20 years before switching to the WNBA because of the lighter summer schedule, and the Liberty were in town during Bucky’s visit, which allowed him a day off for brunch and a game.

George greeted his son at Bar Americain with a hug and slap on the shoulder. “You eat yet? Let’s do this.”

“Hell no,” Bucky grinned, thanking God he’d managed to grab a quick shower back at his apartment before heading to see his Dad. There was never a good reason to hang out with a parent when you reeked of sex.

 

* * *

 

“You know,” George said to Bucky as a the Mets took a 7-1 lead over the Yankees in the fifth, “your grandfather would weep if he knew you were a Yankees fan.”

“Shut it, Dad,” Bucky grumbled, pulling his Yankees hat down over his eyes, avoiding how his Dad kept energetically waving his stupid Mets foam finger.

 

* * *

 

“Seeing anyone?”

“Oh God,” Bucky nearly choked on his burger. They were in the outdoor seating at Shake Shack near the subway line that would ultimately take them both back to Brooklyn. Bucky had gone the entire day hanging out with his father without any questions about his romantic life, but he knew George Barnes and his tendency to be just as insanely nosy as Freddie. It's why they were both perfect for each other and a source of eternal frustration for him.

“It’s a valid question!” George protested.

“No. Not seeing anyone.” Of course, he was _fucking_ someone, but that’s not what his father asked. Semantics winning the day, yet again. “I’ve gone out on a few dates, nothing major.”

“Good. And for what it’s worth, I never liked that Alex fellow.” George took a bite of a fry. “He seemed like a schmo," he added through chews.

That was George Barnes’s highest insult for anyone - Bucky had been horrified to learn that his father hadn’t even voted in the 1972 Presidential elections because, in George’s words, “Both candidates were schmoes!” (“But _Watergate_ , Dad!” Bucky had moaned. “We didn’t know about that! And I still wouldn’t have voted for McGovern! Nobody good was running!” George replied, prim as anything. “Shirley _Chisholm_?!” Bucky’d exploded, shutting George up.)

“Yeah. He was a schmo.” Bucky smiled softly. “A big schmo.” He was so utterly thankful to have parents like George and Freddie, as ridiculous as they could be sometimes. They hadn’t even blinked when he’d come out to them as bisexual in high school. He never took their reaction for granted, not after hearing some of his friends’ coming out stories. Sitwell’s parents hadn’t been nearly so understanding.

“Your mother told me Erskine retired?” George continued. He dug his spoon into his chocolate concrete.

“Yup. They already hired someone to take over for him.

“Another windbag?”

Bucky burst out laughing, causing several pigeons near their table to flutter frantically up into the sky. “No, he’s actually from Brooklyn. Went to Brooklyn College and everything. Name’s Steve Rogers.”

George cocked his head, smiling. “Huh. See if his mom’s name is Sarah. One of the nurses I work with at Johns Hopkins when any of our players are pregnant is named Sarah Rogers. Could be related.”

“Man. Another doctor’s son who disappointed the family by going into a profession that pays pennies?” Bucky smirked, running his tongue over his front teeth as he sunk into the jab.

George sighed. “You know I was only concerned you wouldn’t get a stable job in this unreliable job market, James.”

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll get you another seltzer, moneybags.”

 

* * *

 

When they got back to Bucky’s parent’s apartment, Bucky headed up to his childhood bedroom to decompress and work. Even though it was late, he wanted to get a little bit of work done on the preface and afterword for the book - he had actually finished revisions on his Master’s Thesis to get it into publishable form _._ It had taken him two years to actually get the damn thing finished. He tried not to let Alex’s smoothly taunting voice creep into his brain: _this will never get published because you don't have enough experience in the field, why don't you just stick to your teaching? You're good at that, stay in that lane._

“Fuck off, Alex,” he muttered under his breath.

After about an hour of tweaking, his inbox bleeped. Bucky lit up to see an email from Steve waiting for him.

 _From:_ [ _rogers7486@gmail.com  
_ ](mailto:rogers7482@gmail.com) _To:_ [ _james.barnes@shield.org_ ](mailto:james.barnes@shield.org)

_Hi Bucky,_

_Well, I’m all moved in! My mom cried, my Dad kicked me out of the car so fast my teeth chattered. The usual drill._

_You come back on the 26th, right? Let me know when you’d like to meet for coffee - I could use a distraction from unpacking and Target trips where I blow all of my money on things I didn't know I needed._

  * __Steve__



Bucky’s entire family with the exception of his Dad was sound asleep - he couldn’t squeal in delight. So he just silently clapped his hands and wriggled around in his desk chair before figuring out his response.

 _From:_ [ _james.barnes@shield.org  
_ ](mailto:james.barnes@shield.org) _To:_ [ _rogers7486@gmail.com_ ](mailto:rogers7484@gmail.com)

_Hello Steve,_

_Congratulations! Welcome to Barkstead. It’s a lot more interesting than it looks, I promise. And I empathize with the Target situation. Never go there with Natasha - she’ll talk you into ridiculous purchases._

_I come back on the 25th, so the 26th is my full first day back in town. Let’s do the 27th if that works for you? I’ll be rested and maybe unpacked? (Or I’ll still have all of my crap in my car, let’s be honest)_  

  * __Bucky__



He paused before hitting “send.”

Bucky was stone cold sober. There was no way he could blame drinking or drug use for the addendum on the email he sent to Steve. It was just pure, unadulterated idiocy.

_PS. In case you don’t live in 1998, here’s my cell # so we can text each other like modern adults._

And then Bucky hit send before he could talk himself out of it.

Steve didn’t respond for several minutes, so Bucky kept himself occupied by answering work emails, adjusting some random sentences in his book intro, and resisting the urge to bang his head against his desk hard enough to leave a dent.

Still no email response half an hour later, and Bucky’s eyes were beginning to droop, so he packed up his laptop and got into bed, thanking every god in the pantheon that his parents had swapped out his old twin for a queen. He rolled over to set his alarm for 6AM, hoping to get some gym time in to undo some of the damage he inflicted with brunch and burgers, when he realized his phone had been on silent, and there was a new text message from an unknown number.

_How dare you call me an adult! And how do you know it isn’t 1998 all the time?_

Steve - for it was clearly Steve who had texted him - had followed up that message with a link to the music video for Smash Mouth’s “All Star.”

Bucky buried his head in his pillow to muffle his laughter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Becca discusses her struggle with postpartum depression and anxiety, but mentions she's been getting help for it and is now on medication to handle it.


	4. Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky finally meet, there's some miscommunication, and then Bucky gets some less than desirable news.

“You nervous?”

“Shut up, Nat.”

Nat’s laughter reverberated down the phone line. Bucky sat back in the squashy pink chair in the corner of the Barkstead Farms Starbucks, located a short walking distance from Shield’s campus. Yeah, he should probably be going to the hipster locally-owned place down the street, but their coffee was expensive as hell and he wanted to introduce Steve to the town on a level playing field. Somewhere that’s familiar to anyone in a first world country, anyway. Across from him was another squashy chair in a shade of brown - he wanted to give Steve the butch chair. (Well, he wanted the pink chair, but let’s just say he wanted to give Steve the butch chair.)

Bucky ran a hand through his hair, smoothing it back into its neat bun. “You know I’m nervous, Nat. You saw me at the gym this morning.”

The entire workout had been filled with Bucky badgering Nat about what kind of outfit he should wear to his coffee meeting with Steve. “I want to be professional, but also relaxed, but not too relaxed, but I don’t want to be too intimidating,” Bucky had rambled, causing Nat to rerack her weights a little harder than necessary and stare Bucky down until he admitted he was being annoying as hell.

He had settled on a white button-down and blue jeans with a nice brown belt. A little conservative, but the rolled-up sleeves exposed the tattoos on his arm, so that gave the whole look a little bit of an edge.

“This is just a business meeting, okay?” Natasha soothed him. “Think about it like how you acted when you were in your first sit-down with Fury.”

“Am I Fury in this scenario?”

“Yeah! He’s coming to you with proposals for class projects. You have the upper hand in this situation. And maybe you’ll have another hand in his--”

“Enough!” Bucky said, loud enough for the other Starbucks patrons to twist around and eye him. “I hope he’s not a jerk in person,” he said a little quieter. Even though Steve’s texts had been both hilarious and perceptive. They hadn’t communicated that much since they exchanged phone numbers - Bucky didn’t want to look _crazy_ \- but in their brief messages, Steve had seemed like a cool guy, and a great colleague to have.

Colleague. Yeah. That’s the ticket.

“I’m not going to hit on him,” he said, more to himself than to Nat. “I’m not.”

“Okay, well, you just keep repeating that to yourself. I gotta go.”

Nat, as always, had excellent timing. The second Bucky hung up, the door to the Starbucks swung open and in walked Steve.

Bucky snapped his jaw shut; it had dropped, because in the three months since they first met, Steve had gotten even hotter, which was just totally fucking unfair and made Bucky doubt the existence of God.

Steve was much more casually dressed this time, in a grey henley and dark wash jeans, although it was obvious the guy had absolutely no idea what sizes to get - the shirt fabric was practically begging for mercy, the way it stretched across his chest. The ribbed fabric especially highlighted the little indent that separated his shoulder and bicep muscle. Bucky wanted to put his tongue on it.

“Steve!” he called, when his mouth could work again. Steve looked his way and offered up a grin that fried whatever pathways in Bucky’s brain governed speech. He managed to stumble to his feet. “Good to see you again,” he croaked.

“Yeah! Great to get a chance to do this.” Steve smiled again, and then he was pulling Bucky in for a _hug_ and yep, this was it. This was how James Barnes died. Because Steve’s embrace was warm and familiar, and Bucky really, really wanted to know how it would feel if both of them had no shirts on-

He patted Steve on the back and managed to extricate himself. “Yeah. Unhg. Great.” _Nice, Buck._

Steve squeezed his shoulder, which just made Bucky want to die even more, and motioned to the register. “You good? I’m gonna grab something.”

“Yep! I already got mine, no worries,” Bucky said, holding up his iced mocha and waggling it a little bit like a goddamn weirdo. As Steve headed over to get his drink Bucky chastised himself. _Calm the fuck down, Barnes. He’s a person, not a cheeseburger._

When Steve got back to the table, Bucky was much more calm. Well, outwardly. “What’s your poison?”

“Oh, uh..I’m kind of old fashioned.” Steve said this the way other people might say _I have dead bodies in my basement_. Like it was something to be highly ashamed of. “I got a venti black unsweetened iced coffee.”

“Black, like, with nothing in it?” Bucky said, aghast. Steve laughed. “Yeah, I know. I’m weird.”

“Eh. I have a friend who downs espressos like they’re water, so it’s not that strange.”

“They sound intense.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” Bucky grinned, thinking of Natasha’s demon face in the morning before her caffeine fix.

They made small talk for the next half hour, Steve filling Bucky in on how unpacking was going (apparently he had a _lot_ of art supplies to go through) while Bucky recounted the Brooklyn mainstays he managed to hit up on his trip home. He high-fived Steve when Steve mentioned he was pissed about the Yankees loss, but they both agreed it was their World Series to lose. When Bucky mentioned his support of LFC, Steve crinkled up his nose in confusion, and Bucky had to pause to regain control of his lungs because _nose crinkles oh my god._ He then walked Steve through the fine art of supporting a team in the English Premier League, while Steve told him his background in Impressionist and Pointillist art criticism. “Like the guy who was in _Sunday in the Park With George_?” Bucky asked.

Steve looked at Bucky, confusion painting his face in broad strokes. “It's _A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte_.”

“No, I mean…” Bucky threw up his hands. “Steven Sondheim. He wrote a musical about Seurat.”

“Oh _duh_!” Steve shook off his confusion, now looking thoroughly embarrassed. “Yes. Right. Exactly.”

Every single part of Bucky wanted to ask if Steve was into _Hamilton._ He remained quiet. _Maybe later you can show him your true, insanely geeky self. Like unveiling a werewolf. A nerdy werewolf. That maybe he'd want to fuck. This thought pattern took a weird turn._

After a little more casual conversation, Bucky put on his Very Serious Teacher face. “Okay. So. While ranting about Daniel Sturridge and Sondheim has been fun, let's get down to business. Talk to me. This collab. What are some prelim ideas?”

Steve’s eyes lit up. He grabbed his cross-body bag and unearthed a large 3-ring binder from it. “This isn’t just ideas, I swear. I just like to get really prepared for every situation.” He went pink around the ears. Fuck. Bucky forgot about the blush. He shook himself out of it and leaned over. “Okay, whatcha got?”

Steve explained that with his background in World War literature and Bucky’s special interest in Russian History, it would make a ton of sense to collaborate on art and historical texts surrounding trauma and testimony. “Think about it - we could team up and my students could research on artwork related to, say, the fall of Communist Russia, and your Russian History class could do -”

“Presentations on Gorbachev and Reagan, et cetera,” Bucky filled in. Steve went bright like a sunbeam. “Yes! Or, we could do, like, wartime propaganda and kill two birds with one stone. Like Norman Rockwell’s wartime art or Home Front stuff.”

He got so excited it made Bucky’s chest hurt. Man, Fury had hit the jackpot. The kids were going to love him.

“I’m obsessed with all of this,” he exclaimed.

They spent the next hour mapping out possible lesson plans, and Bucky checked the fall and spring schedules for the MOMA and the Boston Museum of Art. “BMA has an exhibit in spring 2018 on World War II photography!” he yelped.

“Yes!” Steve held up his palm and Bucky slapped it. “I’d email Fury, but since you’ve been here longer, it probably would make more sense if you did?”

“Yeah, definitely. What’s your schedule like in the next few days? We could both sit down with him.”

“Let me check.” Steve pushed up his sleeves a little further, and Bucky nearly had a heart attack.

Steve had a tattoo on his right bicep. It was in beautiful calligraphy, and it looked like a date or something. “Nice tat!” Bucky said, encouragingly. “I’ve got a bunch, too.”

Something in Steve’s gaze shuttered, and his jaw curled up tight in a smile that didn’t reach his eyes. “Thanks,” he said, too quickly.

They continue discussing lesson plans for the next half hour, but Steve never regained that relaxed, confident energy he’d possessed at the beginning of the meeting. Their goodbye was friendly, but still a little too tense for Bucky’s liking. A pit settled in his gut. What had he done wrong?

 

* * *

 

“Huh.”

“I know!” Bucky shook his head, moving the broccoli around on his plate. “It was a complete 180. Before that, it was great. More than great. He’s awesome.”

“Maybe the tattoo is in memoriam or something and he didn’t want to talk about it?” Nat asked as Maria and Sam sat down next to Bucky with their own food.

“You guys talking about tattoos?” Sam asked. “Getting another one, Buck?”

“Nah. I met with Steve today, and got really weird when I asked about this tattoo on his bicep. Which, by the way, is a fucking glorious bicep, and I want to touch it -” Nat snorted - “but I mentioned that it was a cool tattoo and he totally shut down. I mean, he didn’t stop being nice, but it got all weird.”

Sam got a faraway look on his face. “It’s the 28th today, right?”

“Yeah. Why?”

“No reason.” Sam was clearly lying, but Bucky wasn’t in the mood to push it. Aside from the odd way it ended, his afternoon with Steve had been wonderful. Steve was prepared, organized, and obviously had great command of his teaching field.

He clearly had an issue with getting asked about that tattoo. Which, to Bucky, kind of negated having them in the first place. People are going to ask about your ink. Bucky loved explaining his tats to anyone that would listen. The red star on his shoulder was to commemorate one of his favorite comic book characters, a soldier who had been molded by the Russians into a government assassin, and ultimately had broken free of his programming to become a hero. The three sparrows flying upwards towards his collarbone were for his nephews, as were the longitude-latitude coordinates on his left wrist. Winding up his left arm was the Benjamin Franklin serpent with the names of the original colonies etched into the mobius-like curves, with the phrase “History has its eyes on you” on the inside of his bicep.

Bucky really fucking loved _Hamilton_.

 

* * *

 

It wasn’t really about the tattoos, Bucky mused as he left Maria and Sam’s and walked back to his building. He didn’t know much about Steve other than his extensive knowledge of John le Carré and that he probably had less than six percent body fat. But Steve the _person_ was still ephemeral. And that, Bucky determined, was a problem and a half. He couldn’t be this obsessed with someone he didn’t actually know.

Well, he _could_ , but that wasn’t actually forming a working friendship with someone. That was just wanting to get deep-dicked. Big difference.

Which was why it was such a relief to get a text from Steve that night, once he got back to his place and sprawled onto his bed.

 _STEVE ROGERS: Hey - I’m sorry about earlier  
_ _STEVE ROGERS: I acted like a douche_

Hi! It’s okay, I figured the tat was significant or something  
_You don’t have to tell me about it  
_ I have a bunch of them, just a fan of well done ink

Bucky figured that was a safe route. Yes, it’s about the art, about the process of making a body into a living, breathing canvas, and not at all about licking that tattoo and any others Steve might possibly have.

Steve Rogers: Yeah, it’s a really personal one for me  
_Steve Rogers: I’ll tell you about it someday  
_ Steve Rogers: I saw a little bit of yours, they look cool! Would love hearing about them someday too

There was a finality, or rather a certainty, tacked onto that “someday”. Bucky shivered. _Looking forward to both_ he texted back, then kicked his legs up on his work desk, thinking that might calm down the flight of butterflies.

The late June evening was thick and slow; people had a huge misconception about the Northeast. They thought every winter was _Game of Thrones_ and only two weeks of summertime was allowed every year. It wasn’t the Yukon. Summers in Connecticut were long, humid, and filled with pollen, so Bucky sneezed while walking through air made of soup. 

 

* * *

 

_“There you are, Buck!” Nat wheedled, grabbing Bucky’s arm so hard through his suit he actually winced. “Easy, killer, this is a new suit!” he whined, brushing a speck of lint off the navy fabric._

_“Calm down, you baby.” Nat smirked. “I want to introduce you to some people from Triskelion. Never a bad idea to network.”_

_“That’s the sibling school, right?”_

_“You don’t know that?”_

_“I’ve only been at Shield two months, Nat, Jesus.”_

_“Quick, name the Academy Pillars!”_

_“Solidarity, Heart, Integrity, Engagement, Leadership, and Development,” Bucky rattled off, with only a short pause near the middle. Nat mimed golf claps before steering him across the Dum-Dum reception room to a group of rather intimidating looking men and one definitely frightening woman. “Everyone, this is James Barnes. He’s our newest teacher at Shield. This is Brock Rumlow, he’s the assistant men’s basketball coach,” she said, pointing towards a ruggedly handsome man near the center of the group, who stepped forward and grasped Bucky’s hand like he was wrestling a bear. Bucky forced down a squeal at the pressure and just squeezed harder. It felt like a showdown with Vladimir Putin, if Putin had five days of beard growth and lifted weights._

_The man standing next to brook, Bucky suddenly noticed, was eyeing him in a way that would have made Bucky uncomfortable if it were literally anyone else. But the gaze wasn’t malicious, at least, not as far as Bucky could tell. It was an amused sort of curiosity mingled with...want?_

_Holy shit._

_“And this is Alex Pierce,” Nat said, pointing to the handsome man in question, who just raised his lips in a facsimile of a smile. “He’s the head of the English department and head coach of the men's basketball team.”_

_Alex leaned forward with his body like a vulture, all brooding blue eyes and sandy blond hair. “Hi there, James,” he purred. Bucky’s legs turned to gelatin. That voice struck something in him, a note on a new guitar._  


_“Uh. Pleasure to meet you,” he managed to get out. Pierce smiled like he could see through Bucky to the back of his suit jacket, or perhaps like he could peel the jacket off Bucky’s body, and stuck out his hand for Bucky to shake. Bucky took it, ignoring both the pulsing warmth that ran down his knuckles and Natasha’s face, which was a cross-fire of amusement and something like a warning. She kept going down the line, introducing the rest of the Triskelion English department (the terrifying looking woman, Bucky learned, was US History teacher Emma Frost, and she ended up being kind of nice, if still scary) but Bucky kept getting drawn back to Alex and his cool, effortless demeanor._

_They managed some small talk that night, but nothing too major. The next day, Bucky got on Facebook and saw Alex had friended him. Then, when he accepted the request, Bucky got a direct message. That led to a date the next week, which led to sex the week after that, which led to two years of...well._

 

* * *

 

_July 1st._

The sunrise on the Connecticut shoreline was pink and grey, with rays fighting for purchase in the stippling clouds. Bucky paused to stand on the side of Old Black Point Road and just marvel at the sight. Niantic, a census designated village in the town of East Lyme, was much more densely populated than the second village in the town - Flanders, the non-beach section - but you wouldn’t know that from the near perfect morning silence Bucky encountered on his runs through the older subsection of the beach community where Sam and Maria kept a small, sweet cottage. When Sam told Bucky that the name of the community was Black Point, Bucky had nearly fallen to the ground with laughter. “There were probably zero brothers in this place before I got here, okay?” Sam said, voice very prim. Bucky just kept giggling.

The whole place was beautiful and small, with an intimate feel to it. Bucky had grown up going to Coney Island Beach in the summer, but he’d also taken some trips with friends down to the Jersey Shore during college. Both were frenetic, loud, punctuated with the sounds of the boardwalk and crashing waves. Black Point was quietly peaceful, the type of place you’d bring a family, if that family happened to be insanely rich. Maria and Sam’s place was cozy and tiny, but some of the beachfront houses on the older side of the village were downright ridiculous-looking. There was even a croquet court up by the community center, and Bucky was always begging Sam and Maria to organize a drunk tournament, to which Sam would shrug and mumble something about “white people sports.”

Bucky checked his watch. He’d been running for about two-and-a-half miles, and if he kept going, the loop would end at an even five when he got back to Sam and Maria’s. Perfect. He drank some water out of his Camelbak and just took in the world.

It was amazing to think about where Bucky had been two years ago at that exact time, on July 4th. The summer of 2015 had been horrific. After the breakup, Bucky had gone back to Brooklyn to get some much needed family time. Freddie took one look at him, hugged her son tight, and said, “You get a week to grieve as hard as you want, and you can do it here. But after that, you need to heal.” So Bucky grieved hard and loud. He cried way too much, saw movies that he shouldn’t have ( _Inside Out_ was a _huge_ mistake) and played with his nephews when they didn’t remind him of the kids he would never have with Alex. He slept and went to the gym and drank many, many beers and ignored his entire email inbox.

Then, on the eighth day, Bucky woke up to the smell of pancakes and bacon in the kitchen and a pair of large blue eyes staring at him from the end of the bed. “Hey, Jamie,” he murmured. James Proctor looked at his uncle inquisitively, then climbed up onto the bed and snuggled into the sheets. “What’s wrong, Bucky?” he asked.

Bucky bit his lip. “Just some grown up stuff, sweetheart. I’m going to be okay.”

Jamie seemed to take that answer pretty well. He nodded, and looked up at Bucky’s face. “Where does it hurt?”

“Uh. Here.” Bucky couldn’t say _my heart_. The kid was four. Pretty sure he was well under the age understanding metaphors becomes possible. So Bucky pointed to a nondescript part of his right arm. “Right here, buddy.”

“Okay. Because Mommy always says that if you kiss the boo-boo it goes away.” Jamie stooped down in the sheets and awkwardly kissed Bucky’s arm. It wasn’t really a kiss, more of a childlike press of lips to skin without the _pop_ of release. But Bucky felt it all the same. “Thank you, buddy,” he whispered. “It does feel better.”

And for a moment, it really had.

That afternoon he said goodbye to the family and boarded a train at Grand Central back to Connecticut, back to face the music and begin the process of starting over.

It hadn’t been linear, obviously. Traumatic breakups are never smooth. But Bucky had worked through it, bit by bit, thanks to his family and a lot of therapy. He was enjoying life. Laughing. Having an excellent time with his job and friends. His heart was piecing itself back together.

As he looked out over the marshlands, Bucky felt a surge of deep appreciation bloom in his chest for everything he’d been so blessed to have. He rarely took time out to feel truly proud of himself, no matter how many times Freddie bugged him to do that. “Take pride in how wonderful you are, James!” she pleaded, one time when the demons got to be a bit too much. It didn’t really help - sometimes you’re just in too damn deep - but right now, in the glow of sunrise and the green grass of the Connecticut marsh, Bucky felt it.

He turned, put his headphones back in, and kept jogging to complete the loop. _Things are finally looking up_ , he thought to himself, as Kesha’s “Woman” lit up the day.

So of _course_ it all got shot to hell that night.

 

* * *

  

He was at the grill with Sam, trying to sneak some clams before they could be plated (and failing miserably, forgetting that Sam obviously knew how to box out). The day had been gorgeous, with most of it spent schlepping coolers and snacks down the road to the community beach. It was completely crowded with families and guests celebrating the Fourth of July weekend, and Bucky was already making plans to be as patriotically and obnoxiously dressed as possible for the next day’s parade.

The back patio at Sam and Maria’s was small with several deck chairs and a small table where the gang of Bucky, Sam, Maria, Nat, Clint, Thor, and Jane would be dining on burgers, hot dogs, clams, and a gigantic grilled vegetable platter that Jane had made up. There was another collapsible table down next to the grill where anyone who couldn't fit at the main table could sit. Darcy had planned on coming too, but her partner, Carol, had just gotten pregnant and was dealing with insane morning sickness, so they had to pull out. “This baby better be cute,” she grumbled over speakerphone, then yelped directly into the phone. “Sorry,” she sighed. “Someone thought it would be funny to throw a body pillow at me.”

After trying for the fourth time to get a clam, Bucky threw his hands up and turned around to see Nat coming out of the house. “If you’re going to tell me to stop, I will when this guy quits trying to play Bobby Knight defense on me with his big butt and gives me _one_ clam,” he said, sticking his hip out to gently knock into Sam’s with his hip. Sam responded by gently snapping the tongs in Bucky’s face. “You quit body shaming me and wait your turn or I'm gonna use this in a way you won't like.”

Bucky sighed and turned to Natasha. “What’s up, Natty Ice?”

“James,” Nat said.

Bucky’s blood got a little chilly at that. Nat only used Bucky’s full name if something was really serious. He scuttled Nat off the patio and into the backyard, away from Sam - Maria was in the house grabbing plates and silverware, and Thor and Jane had gone to the liquor store for some more beer and Solo cups. Clint was taking a nap on the enclosed porch in front, because, in his words, “I’m a fucking old man and I can’t be out in the sun with you assholes all day without feeling like I got hit by a bus. Wake me up when the food’s ready.”

When Bucky got Nat further away from the patio and closer to the grass, he folded his arms in front of his chest. “What’s up?” he asked, stripping himself of the earlier lighthearted banter.

Nat took a deep breath; Bucky wasn’t sure if it was for him, or for her. “Remember how I told you that if anything was up with Alex, I’d tell you, so you wouldn’t find out about it through Facebook or Instagram?”

“Yeah…” Bucky felt his toes go numb, despite the grounding texture of the grass underneath his feet.

Nat wordlessly held up her phone. It was opened to the Facebook app, to Alex’s page. She was still friends with him due to some cross-over work she _had_ to do with the English department (Triskelion had offered an elective course on Russian Literature).

Bucky shrugged. It looked pretty normal to him. “So?”

Nat, still silent, handed the phone to Bucky so he could scroll down. There was an announcement at the top of Alex’s timeline, a space that had been filled two years prior with photos of him and Bucky and all of the memes Bucky had posted for him over the two years they were together. Alex had stopped ‘liking’ those long before they broke up.

On top of Alex’s timeline was a Facebook post by Brock Rumlow earlier that day. _What’s better than a fourth of July weekend? This guy saying yes._ It was accompanied by a photo of two interlocked hands, one of which sported a simple black band on the ring finger. At the end of the caption, Brock had written _Feeling excited - with Alex Pierce._

For a few seconds it truly didn’t compute.

When it did, Bucky dropped the phone. It landed in the grass with a harmless bounce.

“I’m so, so sorry.” Nat’s entire body looked pinched, like she _hated_ every single second of what she was doing. Eventually, Bucky knew, he would be extremely grateful that Nat was here, showing this to him, so he didn’t have to find out through a third party or on his own.

Eventually he would be grateful.

He pushed past Nat, up the stairs to the patio, into the house, past Maria, and up the ladder to the loft he was bunking in with Thor and Jane. He curled up on the Aerobed he’d been using for the past three days, and that’s when Bucky began to shake.

He shook from rage, regret, fear, loneliness, sadness, and white hot anger. He’d defriended Alex the instant they’d broken up; staying friends on social networks was just too hard. But Nat had come up to him a few weeks after and broken the news that Alex and Brock had started dating. Bucky had gone pretty catatonic for a few hours, emerging to take a boxing class at the gym with Nat and punching a bag so hard it burst. But he’d worked through it.

He thought he’d worked through all of it.

Someone rapped on the ladder. “Bucky?” Thor called. “You okay? Nat told us what happened.”

“We’re so sorry, Bucky. Do you want us to bring food up to you?” Jane’s voice was plaintive and so, so kind. Bucky hated it.

“Alexander Pierce is a scourge to mankind,” Thor proclaimed; he always got weirdly eloquent when he was a little buzzed. “I would do battle with him in some great arena.”

“You’d kick his ass, babe,” Jane said encouragingly.

“I would destroy his genitals,” Thor responded with all seriousness. Bucky choked out a laugh in the midst of his head threatening to come off his body. “Guys. I’m okay. Just gonna be up here for a bit all right?”

“Okay. But just let us know if you want us to bring you any food. Also, you left your phone downstairs and you have a text message from that new teacher. Want me to throw it up?”

“No, hang on-” Bucky slid to the end of the loft, next to the ladder, and reached out to grab his phone from Jane’s hand. “Thanks.”

Jane’s eyes were so, so kind. Bucky hated it.

“We love you, Bucky,” she murmured. “Hang in there.”

“I hope Pierce is bitten by a thousand rabid wolves,” Thor exclaimed, before footsteps signaled they were headed back downstairs. Bucky pulled himself off the Aerobed and read the message from Steve.

 _STEVE ROGERS: Hey! Happy Fourth!  
_ _STEVE ROGERS: I know you’re away this weekend, but any chance you want to go see a movie and hang out this week when you get back? You can tell me about those tattoos!_

Somewhere in the midst of the grief and displaced pain and two years of post-breakup work seemingly flushing down the drain, Bucky felt his heart warm up.

He would grieve this. And then he would heal.

It was the way of the world.

 _Definitely, sounds awesome_ he texted back.  _Maybe on Friday?  
I hope you’re having a great Fourth, too_

_STEVE ROGERS: I always do...it’s actually my birthday LOL_

Bucky blinked in disbelief. _You’re kidding me!_

_STEVE ROGERS: Yeah. Funny, huh?_

In the swirling of his thoughts, Bucky actually choked out a laugh.

_Yeah it really is._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's outfit for the meetup:  
> 
> 
> Steve's outfit for the meetup:  
> 


	5. Blow Us All Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky gets extremely frustrated at the gym (it's all Steve's fault) and then takes part in Shield Academy's presentation for National Coming Out Day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: Biphobic language. More thorough discussion in the end notes.

_October._

Nat had decided to sleep in - the vitamins she was taking to help her and Clint conceive were doing a number on her sleep patterns - so Bucky took advantage of the empty Dum Dum gym in the early Monday morning hours and blasted all of the music he wanted. Beyoncé’s _Lemonade_ had come out about eight months after Bucky left Alex, and it was a damn godsend. Bucky had taken to listening to it more and more in the months following Alex and Brock’s engagement announcement, and he might have gotten blind drunk and screlted (“scream-belted”) “Sandcastles” about 20 times the night everyone got invited to their Jack and Jill engagement party. Steve had texted him that night, asking him what he was up to and if he wanted to hang out, and Bucky had lied and said he was in Brooklyn for the weekend.

Bucky was halfway through a fairly fire cover of “Don’t Hurt Yourself” when the sound of the gym door swinging open briefly took him out of diva mode. Figuring it was Nat, he didn’t bother to turn around, and decided to torture her with some truly awful singing (how Nat could hate Beyoncé yet like Destiny’s Child was a subject of _severe_ contention between them). “Give my fat ass a big kiss boy, tonight I’m fucking up all your _shiiiiit_ , boy!” he screamed, shaking his ass in an exaggerated manner as he whipped around to face what he thought would be Nat’s judgy face.

Steve Rogers was standing in the doorway with a deeply amused look on his face, eyes crinkling up in laughter. “Did I interrupt your concert?” he asked with a wink.

_God, please kill me._

Then Bucky realized Steve was soaking wet. His t-shirt was sticking to his abs.

No big deal. Bucky was just gonna spontaneously explode from the sudden onset of mortification and the beginnings of a boner.

Steve seemed to be entirely unaware of Bucky’s reaction how hot he looked, and blinked slowly. “You there?” he called, still hiding clear laughter in his voice. Bucky tore his eyes from the bit of skin visibly showing between the hem of Steve’s shirt and his shorts - equally wet, because God was hateful and evil - to smash the pause button on the iPod jack. “Uh, yeah - totally not, but like, Beyoncé is a _queen_ \- and I thought you were running outside today?” he babbled.

Steve had come to work out with Bucky and Nat a couple of times in the three months since his arrival in Barkstead, but Nat had always been _there_ , as a buffer, so Bucky wouldn’t do something dumb like ask Steve out on a date, or jerk Steve off in the showers. Because she was a good _friend._

“It’s pouring,” Steve said. “Started about four miles into the jog so I figured I’d do the last two inside. Unless I’m interrupting rehearsals for your world tour?” Steve still had that damn grin on his face, and Bucky didn’t know if he wanted to punch it or fuck it.

He huffed out a laugh, then, and motioned inside. “You might want to towel off first. Not good if all that water makes a student slip and break their face.”

Steve had the goddamn gall to wink. “Thanks for the advice.”

No buffer. Just Steve and Bucky. _Soaking wet_ Steve, and Bucky with no buffer.

Bucky’s life was awful.

 

* * *

 

Life got worse.

Steve stood in front of the gym trash can, took _off_ his shirt to wring it out, and used a towel to rub the remaining droplets off his abs and chest. It was clear he wasn’t doing it for attention - he remained utterly unaware of his own hotness, as he had been since the day Bucky met him. Steve’s lower abs were made of something other than Earth, probably. He even had that Adonis belt thing, which Bucky thought only existed in Photoshop and gay porn. Bucky tried so hard to keep his eyes above Steve’s waist but he was human. Bisexual and human and hadn’t had sex in four months and was crushing _hard_ on his coworker. He made a mental note to call Sitwell when he went back home in two weeks, because he needed to fuck these feelings right out of his body. Like that musical number from _South Pacific_. Wait. Maybe that one was about washing your hair?

From this angle, Bucky could see evidence of more tattoos on Steve’s side and arm, but Steve pulled a dry pinney from the pile of available extras at the front of the gym and threw it on before he could get a closer look. The yellow of the pinney just made the golden tones of Steve’s skin stick out even more, and of course he picked the sleeveless one. His arms looked even larger under fluorescent lights.

Bucky’s feet on the treadmill made an expletive-filled cadence. _Fuck - fuck - fuck - fuck - fuck-_

_Don’t look at his ass, Barnes.  
_

_Too late.  
_

_Okay, well, don’t linger then._

_Too late._

_Don’t fucking drool._

_DAT ASS THO_

_Fuck - **fuck- fuck - fuck - fuck** \- _

“Excited for Assembly?” he panted through strides. Steve nodded as he climbed up on the treadmill _right fucking next to him_ , and yep. This was the worst day of Bucky’s entire life.

“We’re going to announce the fall art gallery opening for the senior AP students.”

Because of _course_ Steve had been such a success teaching the Art History course that when he lobbied Fury for extra gallery space for Art Club students, he got it in a heartbeat. The guy was fucking _perfect_.

When Bucky got back from Niantic after the Fourth of July, he got drinks with Steve at Howl, a local watering hole. They had a total blast. Steve was much more relaxed when he wasn’t talking about his personal life, so Bucky didn’t push. Instead, they talked about school projects, Brooklyn, food preferences, and taste in pop culture.

_“I have to ask.” Steve leaned in. Bucky suddenly lost the ability to breathe. He could only watch as Steve reached out a hand, and -_

_“Please tell me that's from_ Hamilton _.” Steve’s index finger was pointed to Bucky’s left bicep, with the “History has its eyes on you” tattoo. Bucky’s heart leapt. “You know_ Hamilton _?”_

_“Duh. It's awesome.” Steve grinned._

The night may have ended with both of them loudly singing “You’ll Be Back” to the confused looks of the Howl patrons.

(Straight guys used _Hamilton_ as their gateway into musical theatre, Bucky told himself furiously after he’d gotten home. _This means nothing._ )

Bucky and Steve ended up embarking on weekly coffees at each of the Barkstead hot spots (Steve wanted to find the best black coffee in town; Bucky wanted to watch the way Steve’s throat bobbed when he drank something; it was a mutually beneficial arrangement). They’d also get together for Netflix marathons and to hash out scheduling for the fall. Once school started, they made walks to Starbucks with Nat a near-daily ritual, and when Nat had to cancel for early meetings or doctor’s appointments, they’d go on their own, much to the delight of students who caught them mid-walk or at their cafe of  choice. Those walks weren’t as torturous as the gym visits without Nat - once Bucky had some coffee in him, he was able to let the caffeine take over. At the gym, Bucky would either completely ignore him, or use Nat as a conduit for conversation. Anything to take his mind away from the dripping and the muscles and the shorts and the _everything._

It wasn’t too hard to be around Steve when Steve was fully dressed and breathing normally. Steve was kind, brilliant, and funny, with a morality streak a mile long. They’d become Facebook friends shortly after Bucky got back from the beach, and every few days Steve would put together a very well thought out, yet ridiculously passionate rant about workers’ rights or feminism or body image or something else that made Bucky wonder if Tony had built Steve out of spare parts in his lab just to fuck with him. It didn't take long for Bucky to realize that he wanted Steve for more than just his body.

(Bucky also appreciated that it looked like Steve had joined Facebook, like, a year ago, because there were zero old or embarrassing photos to disprove his “Steve Rogers is a robot” theory, and he kind of wanted to hold on to that belief for a little bit longer.)

“I’m going to help Spectrum with their National Coming-Out Day presentation, actually,” he managed to say when he quit sprinting and jumped up onto the side of the treadmill to cool off. Steve eyed him, and adjusted his own speed. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. It’s my turn. Erik and Charles did it last year.” Charles had discussed his pansexuality, and Erik Lensherr, Shield’s German language teacher, had discussed how his marriage to Charles did not negate his self-identification as a bisexual man. Bucky had been toying with the possibility of doing the same thing and had been encouraged by Fury and Coulson to participate. “I’m oddly nervous about it,” he joked.

“You’ll be fantastic,” Steve encouraged, finishing up his two miles in a ridiculously short time.

As he drank water, Bucky contemplated that he and Steve had never really discussed anything related to their dating lives, or anything really personal. Their conversations tended to skew more toward world events or cultural icons. Steve gave Bucky the vibe of being a pretty private person, if his Facebook was any indication. He didn’t even have a Twitter or Instagram account. Bucky had both, mainly to keep tabs on students and make sure they weren’t being idiots on social media and to keep up with the news.

“Just weird to talk about being bi in front of my students. I still remember back in the day when even talking about liking guys got you punched at recess. But the students are gonna be doing it, so I might as well be brave, right?” He jumped off his own treadmill.

Steve's eyes shifted. “Bi, eh?”

“Dude…” Bucky motioned to his iPhone; the protective cover was pure white with “BOY BYE” in black block letters. “I worship at the altar of Beysus. I went to Britney’s Vegas show for my 31st birthday. I mean - I also think she's hot as hell, but I'm pretty damn square in the middle of the Kinsey scale.” He laughed.

After a second, Steve joined in. “Yeah. Just figured - you and Sharon are always hanging out…”

“Well, I’m bi, not gay, and second, nah. Sharon’s awesome but I've never been into her that way. She’s like my sister. Or, my second sister.” Bucky looked up. “Wait. Have you?”

“Uh-”

“I can totally do it!” Bucky pitched his voice up to sound much more enthusiastic than normal while his stomach fell into his butt. “She’s awesome.”

Steve looked away, wiping down his treadmill with almost military-like efficiency. Bucky was struck by a vision of what Steve’s apartment must look like. Probably all clean lines. Massive couch to accommodate that frame. Books about Degas and Monet since Steve had told him he loved Impressionism.

“Hey are you around this weekend?” Steve asked, balling up his used paper towels a little harder than was probably necessary.

“Yep.”

“Well…” Steve’s face relaxed, and gave a shit-eating grin. “Halloween Housewarming. My place.”

“Hell yes!” Elation bubbled through Bucky like cheap champagne. It wasn’t weird to Bucky that he hadn’t been inside Steve’s apartment yet; Steve had been complaining about how many boxes he was still trying to unpack, and Bucky had shared he’d been in the same apartment for four years and had two boxes of DVDs he hadn’t touched. Bucky liked seeing people’s homes; he had a bit of a thing for home improvement. Part of him wanted to live his life like Chip and Joanna from _Fixer-Upper_.

“Awesome. I’m thinking Saturday night? Plus it’s Fall Weekend, so we’ll have Monday off.” Steve pushed a hand through his hair, wiping the sweat off his brow. Bucky felt a perverse desire to smell it.

“Just gotta figure out what the hell I’m gonna wear,” he sighed, melodramatic as usual, to get his mind off the whole wanting to smell a sweaty person’s hair thing.

“I figured you’d plan your costumes a year in advance,” Steve chuckled, making his way over to the showers with a towel hanging from his arm. Which meant he’d soon be naked in the showers. Which meant Bucky had to think about Steve’s ass, chest, and cock all hot and wet and soaped up and _Oh my god Barnes you are not going to pop a boner in here._

“I usually wing it,” he stammered, looking everywhere but at the perfect peach emoji that was Steve’s ass. “Nat and Clint hate it because they always want me to come over in costume and hand out candy to the kids. I always end up going as like, a three-hole punch or something, like Jim on _The Office._ ”

“Well, now you have a reason to plan something. I expect effort, Barnes.” Steve wagged his finger in Bucky’s direction like he was disciplining a puppy. Bucky scoffed.

“Please. I’m going to kill it and you know it.”

He used the bottom of his shirt to wipe off his face, oblivious to how Steve’s gaze flickered down to Bucky’s stomach for a brief moment.

 

* * *

 

“Mr. Rogers!” America Chavez waved from her spot in line at Hydra Coffee when she saw Bucky and Steve walk in the door. At her side, Kitty Pryde waved like she was flagging down a Black Hawk. Bucky nudged Steve. “Your students are obsessed.”

“They’re just friendly,” Steve protested, that damn blush spreading over his cheeks and neck.

“Come on,” Bucky practically begged, causing America and Kit to notice him and instantly light up even more. “We thought you’d come here!” Kit said with a big smile, adjusting her purse on her shoulder. “I told Rica that you guys have been coming here a lot instead of the Starbucks.”

“Well, Hydra’s espresso is like gasoline, but someone likes it,” Bucky said with an exaggerated eyeroll.

“Oh come on! You like their iced lattes.”

“They don’t have pumpkin syrup, Steve. What kind of coffee establishment doesn’t have pumpkin syrup in October?”

“The kind that's more concerned with making actual _coffee_ instead of weird _Harry Potter_ creations?”

“I will just ignore you even insulted me and the world of J.K. Rowling like that.” Bucky turned away from Steve in mock annoyance and noticed America staring almost reverently at them. “What’s up, Chavez?” he asked.

“You guys are so cute. It’s the epic bromance of the century.” She winked at Kit, who returned the look. “Seriously, Mr. Barnes. You two are friendship goals.”

“Aw, girls. You hear that, Steve? We are goals,” Bucky said, looking over at Steve, but he blinked. Steve was gone.

“I think he went to the bathroom, Mr. Barnes,” Kit piped up. “You should get in line anyway, save him a spot.”

“Good idea.”

The girls left after grabbing their coffees, and waved goodbye to Steve as he came out of the bathroom. “Bye Mr. Barnes! Bye Mr. Rogers!” they called.

Their names sounded good together, Bucky thought to himself as Steve joined him in line. Would sound even better if they were somehow hyphenated and _oh my God James Barnes you have officially lost your fucking mind_.

The walk back to campus was beautiful and a little cold. Leaves fluttered in and out of Bucky’s line of vision in shades of gold and vermillion. “This reminds me of Central Park with all of the leaves and walking paths...but fewer pigeons and naked people,” he said. Steve nodded.

“Totally. Although I went to Prospect Park more often when I was a kid. With my parents.”

There was a wistfulness in Steve’s tone.

“Fun times, huh?” Bucky pushed.

“Yeah.” Steve unconsciously scratched his bicep, the one Bucky knew had the tattoo. He still hadn’t gotten a good look at that tat. But he didn’t want to get into that conversation just yet. It was a gorgeous fall morning and Bucky just genuinely enjoyed walking quietly with Steve. Sure, Nat was here more often than not, but Bucky felt a calm and ease around Steve he hadn’t felt in a long time. The guy was smart and genuinely interesting and probably straighter than a geometrical line, but Bucky was happy to just be Steve’s friend.

Even if there were times they walked a little too close together, and Bucky’s fingers itched to lace themselves with Steve’s. This was okay too.

 

* * *

 

Bucky was not fucking okay.

No amount of encouraging texts from Nat, Billy Madison gifs from Clint, or ridiculously overwrought voicemails from Thor (“MAY YOU PILLAGE YOUR PRESENTATION LIKE LEIF ERIKSON” got Bucky a bunch of stares in the faculty lounge of the Helicarrier when he opened his phone’s inbox) would make the nausea recede from Bucky’s throat or the sweat stop dappling his palms in a panicked pointillism. He waited backstage with several students, mostly juniors and seniors, and one very nervous freshman, and Bucky took a minute to swallow back his vomit and walk over to her. “Everything okay?” He smiled. The freshman, named Gert, looked up at him through thick-lensed glasses and nodded, eyes slightly less round under a wild tangle of purple hair. “Just...this is a big deal for me,” Gert whispered.

“I know. Trust me, you’ll be fine.” Bucky put a hand on her shoulder. Out on stage, the new heads of Wednesday Assembly and Morning Meeting, juniors Nico Minoru and Chase Stein, wound down the first round of announcements. “Okay guys. We have a special presentation today brought to you by the members of Spectrum. After the presentation, you’ll all be bused to your Wednesday games and activities, so make sure you know where you’ll be meeting your bus.” Shield operated on a regular private school schedule; Wednesdays were half days to accommodate athletics and special assemblies, usually involving alumni speakers or club presentations. Today was Spectrum’s turn.

Bucky looked over at T’Challa, who was helping as an ally and advocate for LGBTQ people. “Ready?” he murmured. T’Challa nodded.

They led the group out on stage, little Gert trailing the pack. They stood together in a straight line, as they’d practiced. At T’Challa’s motion, Bucky stepped forward and cleared his throat. “Hi everyone. Uh. You all know me, but if you’re still trying to figure out who’s who in the faculty, I’m James Barnes, and I’m the AP US History and Russian History teacher, so you’ll know me in a few years when I’m bothering you about your junior year testing,” he cracked. There were a few groans, but more laughs. Bucky pushed a hand up to smooth his hair back. “I’m up here with the members of Spectrum to talk to you about National Coming Out Day. Everyone up on this stage has chosen today to come out about their sexuality or their status as an ally and advocate for the LGBTQ community. We’ll also be talking to you in the spring when we recognize the National Day of Silence, a day in which we will honor all of those who have been silenced by homophobia or anti-LGBTQ legislation. But today should be a good, positive day for everyone. Okay.” He looked over at the group. “Elijah?”

A black junior stepped forward. “Hi. I’m Elijah Bradley. I’m, uh, on the basketball team.” A large whoop from the audience made Elijah stifle a laugh; clearly his teammates supporting him. “I’m looking at colleges this year, maybe for scholarship. I really, uh, like mint chocolate chip ice cream and the cookies in the dining hall. And I’m pansexual.”

Loud, sustained applause from the school body. Bucky thought he saw Sam give a thumbs up. Elijah ducked his head, but Bucky could see a huge smile on his face.

Raven Darkholme, now a senior, came up to the mic for her turn. “Hi. I’m Raven. I’m Head of Main, which basically means I’m the one who draws those funny pictures at the Helicarrier main hallway. I’m hopefully going to Fashion Institute of Technology next year for school, and I want to be a fashion designer when I graduate. And I identify as queer.”

“Now, what’s the difference between queer and pansexual, Raven?” Bucky prompted.

“Pansexual means you are sexually and romantically attracted to anyone, regardless of gender or sexual expression. Queer is a more umbrella term, and I feel more comfortable using that one. But more power to Elijah for being pan!” She held out a fist; Elijah bumped it.

A few more students came forward to tell their stories into the mic. They all had small facts about themselves had nothing to do with their sexual preferences. One was ace, another was aro. Bucky had strived to find a mix that was most reflective of the student body. T’Challa talked about his sister Shuri, who came out as a lesbian when she was fifteen, and how it was difficult for her to do that in a traditional family like theirs, but they all learned and grew together and were a stronger unit as a result.

Finally, it was Gert’s turn. “Hi. I’m Gert.” She looked back at Bucky, who nodded, and cleared her throat. “I’m a freshman, so I’m still trying to find my way around campus.” The audience hummed in understanding. “I’m probably going to go out for crew in the spring as a coxswain. And…” she hesitated.

“You can do it,” Raven whispered. Bucky mentally thanked her.

“I’ve been on hormones for the past two years,” Gert said, voice small but steady. “I was born Geert...it’s a Dutch name, but now I’m Gertrude. Gert for short, so you can just call me that.” Her voice got a little louder. “I’m transgender, male to female. And I love fashion and dyeing my hair crazy colors. I’ll probably do pink next time.”

The audience clapped. Gert took a deep breath, her shoulders relaxing from their previous place around her ears. Bucky bit back the urge to sob. In the audience, he saw Steve clapping hard.

It would have been so easy for Bucky to forget that it was his turn. But if Gert could have that much bravery, so could Bucky.

“And I’m Mr. Barnes,” he said, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand. “I...hmmph. This is harder than I thought it would be. Gert, you’re a rockstar. All of you are!”

The whole group looked down at the floor, steadily blushing in various shades of pink and peach.

“Anyway. You might hear teachers call me Bucky; my middle name is Buchanan, and my little sister called me Bucky one day and it just stuck. I love iced mochas - anyone who’s been in my classes in the morning has seen that giant thing of coffee on my desk - my students always get me Starbucks gift cards for Christmas. I live for _Hamilton_ , I’m constantly quoting it in class, so if you aren’t into it, don’t take my classes.” He paused, waiting for a laughter that thankfully came. Steve was joining in.

No turning back.

 

* * *

 

_“Bisexuality doesn’t really exist,” Alex said, blowing cigar smoke in wide rings. Bucky stepped out of the line of fire to avoid getting the stink on his clothes. “You’re either straight or you’re gay. And you’re with me, and you enjoy my dick, so you’ve clearly picked your team.”_

_“I still like women. I’ve fucked women.” Bucky shrugged. “I enjoy it.”_

_“You keep telling yourself that, babe,” Alex smirked, “but nobody takes a dick as well as you do and goes back to pussy. It doesn’t happen.”_

 

* * *

 

“I’m bisexual.” Bucky pushed those annoying memories to a mental dustbin as he gritted out the words. “I’m pretty proud of it, even if I look nervous now, because I am nervous, but that’s just because I’m not really good at talking about myself in front of large groups. I can talk about the KGB or the rise of Stalinism until I’m blue in the face, or about Beyoncé, but god forbid I make myself the topic of conversation.”

He could feel his confidence growing. “If someone tells you they are bisexual, do not erase them. There is a lot of bi-erasure and biphobia out there in the media, and a lot of people try to convince bisexuals like myself that they just have to ‘pick a side.’ Well, we exist, we aren’t weird, and I’m greedy. So deal with it.”

Steve burst out laughing, which made Bucky immediately get hot all over, but it was immediately followed by a wave of joy so profound it nearly knocked him off his feet. “Uhh, yeah. So...if you guys have any questions, we’re going to open it up to you guys. Can we have a round of applause for all of these brave kids?” he asked, and the student body immediately rose to their feet in a unified wave of support and congratulations. Gert looked at Bucky, and her smile made all of Bucky’s nerves immediately worth it.

Also worth it? The giant grin on Steve’s face, beaming out to Bucky like a radio signal from space.

For the first time in a long time, Bucky felt entirely proud of who he was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky remembers a moment when Pierce expressed biphobic points of view, telling him that no one who liked gay sex as much as Bucky does ever goes back to sex with women, and that bisexuality isn't a true sexual identity.
> 
> Check out all the young Marvels/Runaways references! 
> 
> This is based on an actual presentation my high school did every year, and this was 17 years ago, so to watch these girls get up in front of the entire school and announce their sexuality like they did was absolutely incredible.


	6. Say No To This

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve has a Halloween party, and things...escalate.

_Ehhhhh._

Bucky scrutinized his reflection in his bedroom mirror. He’d decided to go for simple Dracula for Steve’s party, with a ruffled shirt and a high-necked cape. The leather pants were a personal touch - the trousers that came with the cheap iParty costume made him look like a weird pirate. Good upgrade, Bucky thought as he adjusted the cape, but he still needed to put on the fake blood. He’d save that for the parking lot of Steve’s building; God forbid he got pulled over by one of the cops in Barkstead Center looking like he’d just made a human sacrifice.

He drove over to Steve’s apartment with excitement pounding in his veins. It was his first time in Steve’s place! Sure, it was a party with a bunch of their colleagues, but still: Bucky would finally be seeing Steve’s home, and Steve in his natural habitat. Once he parked in the lot, Bucky took a second to slap on some of the blood he’d gotten in the costume pack; it smelled like Elmer’s Glue with twice the viscosity, but at least that meant it would stay put.

Steve buzzed him up with a cheery “welcome to the party!” and when Bucky got to the front doors he laughed at the little ghost hanging from the front. PRESS ME its nose commanded. When Bucky did so, the theme to _Nightmare Before Christmas_ blared. “Oh my god, you fucking dork,” Bucky said to himself, before the door was flung open and Clint stood before him, wrapped head to toe in gauze. “Mummy?” Bucky guessed.

“Nope. I’m Nat’s prey.” Clint motioned to Nat who was standing behind him, dressed as a Black Widow spider. Extra were legs sticking out from her torso and a red hourglass painted on her belly. Fake blood dripped from her mouth. She let out a whistle as her eyes surveyed Bucky’s costume. “Damn. I guess you can dress up for Steve’s party and not for us?”

“Ah, shut up,” Bucky insisted, rather weakly. Nat rolled her eyes as Steve came into the hallway and stopped dead. “Buck.”

Bucky’s brain nearly melted at the nickname _of_ his nickname (he was still getting over how sexy it sounded to hear “Bucky” come out of Steve’s mouth), but then again, it was pretty much fried to a crisp at the sight of Steve’s costume; the guy was obviously dressed as Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist, pads and all. “That is _awesome_ ,” he breathed.

Steve went pink. “You look good too. Vamp, huh?”

“Yeah. It was the best I could do on short notice.” He looked over at Clint and Nat. “I’m learning about their personal lives from this costume choice.”

“Shut up, it was either this or Spartan Cheerleaders and they didn’t have any of those left at the iParty,” Clint said, voice loaded with amusement as Nat flicked her gaze from Steve to Bucky.

As they headed to the living room, Nat lagged behind to grab Bucky’s arm. “You saw that, right?”

“What? What are you talking about?”

Nat muttered something in Russian under her breath, too low for Bucky to catch.

The living room was the complete opposite of what Bucky had pictured. Instead of sleek, precise lines, the place was open and airy in shades of blue and bronze. The only thing that matched Bucky’s vision was the giant sectional couch, covered in throw pillows and blankets in coordinating topaz and navy. Sam, Jane, and Thor were draped across it - Sam was a Tuskegee airman, Jane and Thor were clearly She-Ra and He-Man. Thor didn’t even need the damn padding that came with the costume; the guy was built to be that character anyway. They were flipping over one of the books on Steve’s coffee table - a collection of paintings by Norman Rockwell.

“Man, Steve,” Sam laughed, “I knew you were Mr. Americana, but this just takes the cake.”

“Ha ha,” Steve replied, handing Bucky a Two Roads Roadsmarys's Baby that Bucky didn’t even ask for, but Bucky had mentioned was one of his favorite seasonal beers, like, a month ago, because he was a fucking robot. “I’m predictable.”

“That’s not a bad thing,” Bucky said, trying to be helpful. “Sometimes being predictable is comfortable. Makes people feel good.”

“Yeah.” Steve shrugged, then disappeared into the kitchen. Bucky assumed he was making the rounds as host, and did his own due diligence. After a quick hello to Sharon (Elsa from _Frozen_ ) and Erik and Charles (Roman gladiators) he did a little tour of the room to get more of a peek into Steve’s home life. Bucky was fascinated by how people lived and what they displayed in their homes. The Nets were playing the Spurs on the wall-mount TV, and despite the clear evidence of unpacking that hadn’t been finished (Bucky paused by an ajar closet near the kitchen entrance, the lip of a cardboard box sticking out) and the half-filled DVD tower next to the entertainment unit, the room still gave off a comforting, lived-in feel that Bucky instantly cottoned to. The books on the shelves were all clearly loved and thumbed through more than once, and the wall next to the kitchen was covered with sketches and half-finished oils of people Bucky assumed were in Steve’s family - they all shared the crinkles next to Steve’s eyes and his bright, sunny smile.

He ventured into the kitchen, all stainless steel and new appliances, and smiled at Steve’s big frame trying to maneuver through everyone with the hockey pads, nearly smacking into pinup girl Darcy in the process. “Eventually you may need to give up and take off those pads,” he joked. Steve turned around and laughed that big, open laugh of his. “This isn’t nearly as bad as Nat. She’s knocked about ten books off my shelves with her spider legs.”

Bucky cracked open his Roadsmary's and clinked it with Steve’s own Sam Adams Oktoberfest. “I like your place,” he said, casually. Steve looked around, as if he didn’t realize it was his own apartment. “Yeah. I really lucked out. They’d just gutted the whole thing and redid the floors. I couldn’t deal with carpeting. Too much work.”

“Yeah. I’m trying to weasel my way into Winter House and one of the big draws for me are the new wooden floors.” Bucky waved at T’Challa and Ororo, dressed as Belle and the Beast, before turning back to Steve, who leaned up against the fridge with conspiracy flaring in his gaze. “Winter House, huh?”

“Yeah. I’ve been in love with that house since my campus tour. After I’ve been here for five years I can apply for upper faculty housing. I love my apartment, but that house -” Bucky shook his head. “You ever see something that just makes you go,” he sagged his shoulders and made an ‘ _unnnnh_ ’ sound, like a bratty child. “Like, _I want that_. Just that feeling where you want something so bad?”

Steve’s jaw briefly flexed. “Sure. Who hasn’t.”

“Yeah. That’s how I feel about that house.” Bucky smiled.

“Well. Here’s to getting what you want.” Steve raised his beer, and Bucky clinked it with his own bottle. “To getting what you want!” he repeated.

The rest of the party passed in a blur of beer, amazing food (Steve turned out to be a goddamn whiz in the kitchen, because he couldn’t get any more fucking perfect; Bucky brought store-made cookies because he didn’t trust himself around an oven or a mixer), and group games. After Bucky lost for the third time in a row to Ororos’s brilliant scheming in Settlers of Catan, he threw up his hands. “I’m done. I’m gonna go get some air.”

“I’ll join you,” Steve said. “I’m getting my ass kicked by Clint.”

“Sorry not sorry!” Clint called, before getting poked in the ribs by Nat. Bucky bit back a grin as he headed out to the back deck. The night wasn’t too cold, since it was still mid-October, and Connecticut was known to get freak heat waves right before the blast of winter hit. Bucky was perfectly comfortable in his shirt and cape. Steve, drunk and flushed, had removed his pads and was just wearing sweats and the Lundquist jersey.

“You know, it sucks weed isn’t legal in Connecticut yet. I could go for some right now.”

“Yeah, not the best idea. Fury’s got eyes everywhere. Trust me.”

“Good point.” Steve settled down on one of the wicker deck chairs. “You like the place?”

“Yeah! It’s great.” Bucky sat down on the other deck chair with a thud. “Not what I was expecting. Kinda thought you’d be all whites and blacks and military lines.”

“Ha!” Steve chuffed. “Nah. A lot of this stuff is hand-me-downs from my parents. Old furniture and stuff. But I like it. Reminds me of home.” He rubbed his right arm.

Now probably wasn’t the best time to do this. But screw it. “You really love your parents, huh?”

Steve’s eyes got soft. “They’re amazing. The best I could ever hope for, really. I’m just lucky I still got ‘em.”

“Why?” Bucky scootched his chair closer.

Steve leaned back in his chair, blowing cold air through his nostrils up to the clear October night sky. “My Dad had a heart attack when I was twelve. It was a big one but they caught it in time. Heart valve transplant took, thank God. Then my mom got diagnosed with cancer when I was fourteen. Right when I went into high school. Was in chemo for, like, a year.” Steve suddenly looked small. “For a while they weren’t sure if they were going to be able to catch all of it, but she’s a lucky lady. She’s been cancer free for, like, thirteen years? Every time we go to get it checked there’s no new growth.”

“That’s...that’s horrible, but it’s awesome she’s in remission.” Bucky’s heart hurt. “I don’t know what I would do if my parents got sick like that.”

“Yeah, it was bad. Breast cancer, stage 2. Which I know isn’t the worst it can get but they were talking about double mastectomy for a while.” Steve’s volume gave away that he’d had a lot to drink, but the words were clear as crystal. “I wasn’t really prepared for that, y’know? The idea of losing my mom at such a young age. That with the heart attack, it did a number on me.”

“God, I bet. I can’t even imagine.”

“Yeah. So...the tattoo on my arm? The one I kinda freaked out on you for-”

“Oh, don’t worry you don’t have to tell-”

“No, I do.” Steve smiled sadly. “It’s two dates. One of them is the day she went into remission; kind of a reminder to myself to always be thankful for what I have. The other one is when I was...well.”

“You seriously don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” Bucky felt uneasy. He didn’t want to take advantage of Steve’s drunken state to hear more about his personal life. That felt gross. But Steve shook his head like a wet dog. “No, no, it’s okay. I want to tell you. Seriously. It feels good, to get it out and tell you. I trust you.”

“I’m glad,” Bucky said, the idea that Steve _trusted him_ rattling him all the way down to his toes.

Steve rubbed his eyes. “So, uh. My mom’s diagnosis kinda fucked me up. Well. Really fucked me up. And I felt kinda out of control and not sure of what to do with myself, and I wanted to control something. I’d always felt a little bit like that, but that kicked it into high gear. I was getting into fights in school, always trying to stand up for people. I didn’t want to do that to my Mom when she was sick. So instead of getting in fights...I started running a lot, and eating...not a lot.”

Unease settled in Bucky’s stomach. “Well, that doesn’t sound good.”

“It really wasn’t,” Steve shot back with a laugh just this side of harsh, but it deflated fairly quickly as he looked out past the balcony into the woods. “I got really thin and weak, and after my Mom got better I still couldn’t really get past it. It took seeing a bunch of specialists and therapists, and getting into wellness and fitness that I got through it. I mean, you never fully get over that, but a psychiatrist told me it was more due to OCD than my eating habits, so I needed to find healthier things to fixate on.” He gave a little, half-hearted shrug. “That date is the date I got told by my doctor that my health was finally getting better and my levels were back to normal.”

He broke out into a laugh, which startled Bucky. “Sorry,” Steve said quickly. “Didn’t mean to spook you. I mean, it’s just that people never believe me when I tell them I had an eating disorder, because of how big I am now.”

“Well then they’re assholes,” Bucky replied, vehement. “You never know what people have gone through. They fucking suck if they think they can predict how someone’s life has gone based on how they look. And I think you’re...you’re _incredible_. You’ve gone through so much, and you’ve got such a good attitude about all of it, and...I really admire you, you know that?”

Bucky snapped his jaw shut. The tiny part of his brain that was still sober screamed at him _ABORT, ABORT MISSION._

The fact that Steve was turning a lovely shade of magenta didn’t help. “Thanks,” he murmured, leaning forward in his chair, knocking Bucky’s knees with his. “I really appreciate that. And I admire you too. You doing that in front of the entire school. That took fuckin’ balls.”

“Well, a few girls did it too, so I think it took balls and ovaries,” Bucky joked, a little breathless. Steve was _really_ inching forward in his chair.

“Whatever organs. It was really brave. I don’t have that kind of bravery. That’s a whole different, uh, thing.” Steve’s voice was low, and he reached over to Bucky. “You have something.”

“Yeah?”

Steve’s fingers found a tiny twig near Bucky’s temple and flicked it aside, but they touched Bucky’s skin for a brief moment, and it turned the mild sandstorm in Bucky’s guts into a full Dust Bowl.

“Sorry. Don’t mean to get up in your space,” Steve murmured.

 _No. Don’t be sorry. Never ever be sorry for touching me. Keep touching me. Touch me all night._ “It’s okay.” Hell, at this point, a goddamn M-16 could have been firing in the apartment next door and Bucky wouldn’t have noticed, because Steve’s hands were callused and raw from years of painting and sculpting and they moved over Bucky’s hair like they _belonged_ in it. The distance between them was uncomfortably, searingly close. Dancing next to the sun. Getting caught in a storm. Lightning crackling.

Steve’s hand moved down from Bucky’s hair to the corner of his jaw, thumb brushing against the curve of cheekbone. Warnings flashed in Bucky’s head, chief amongst them _HE IS STRAIGHT AND DRUNK AND HE WILL REGRET THIS TOMORROW._ But the part of him that was just drunk enough to not give a shit leaned in, transfixed by the droplets of beer still clinging to Steve’s full, pink mouth and the glazed over, drunk (and _lustful_?) gaze in his eyes -

“Hey assholes!”

Bucky slammed back in his chair and away from Steve like he’d been shot. Standing in the frame of the sliding door was Wade Wilson, director of Shield’s Drama Department and purveyor of _extreme_ drama everywhere he went. He was dressed as Beatrix Kiddo from Kill Bill, blonde wig and all, but thankfully the samurai sword sheathed at his side was clearly fake. “You guys are missing some damn good fun in here,” he said, voice just as brash as ever. “I brought Fireball, and Nat’s trying to convince Clint to not punch me in the taint and taters for befouling the party with it. Good times!”

Bucky shook his head and stood up. Steve paused, then stood up too. They met eyes for a split second, and it was as if they both silently agreed not to talk about it.

“Did I interrupt some kind of girl’s therapy session?” Wade looked back and forth between Steve and Bucky. “Should I get a pint of ice cream? With three spoons? Or shall we just lick it out of the tub like heathens?”

“Fuck off, Wade,” Bucky groaned. Wade was a good guy, if a little _extra_ , so Bucky tried to sound good-natured, but his cock was hard as iron in his leather pants and Wade had _ruined_ whatever possible moment could have happened between him and Steve.

Before he could say anything else, Bucky felt Steve push past him with a rough laugh and head back into the house, probably to restrain Clint from doing harm to anyone’s scrotum. He ignored Bucky for another hour until Bucky called it a night and got an Uber home, figuring he could come back the next day for his car. Wasn’t worth it to drive.

When he got home, Bucky immediately took off his clothes and got in the shower to scrub off the fake blood and pasty white makeup and eyeliner - and to take care of business. The memory of Steve's light touch on his face, with roughened edges and short nails lingering just a little too long, provided more than enough motivation. Bucky flattened his back against the wall of his shower and stroked himself, slowly at first, and then with a speed that bordered on masochistic. His knees bent and straightened in rhythm with his strokes, imagining leaning back and fucking himself on Steve's cock. Or -  _or_ \- his legs tight around Steve's waist, Steve hovering above him and drilling down into him, finding that bundle of nerves that lit him up.

Or Steve's smile.

Or the way he looked when no one but Bucky was looking.

Or the way Bucky longed to just touch his hand -

Bucky came so hard he thought his legs were going to give out, but after he came back to his senses, it hit him like a dumbbell over the head.

He was completely in love with Steve Rogers.

The shower water was still hot, but Bucky felt ice cold.


	7. Wait For It

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Steve and Bucky go home to Brooklyn for Thanksgiving. More miscommunication ahoy, and SOMETHING BIG HAPPENS FINALLY.

“Excited for Thanksgiving break?”

Bucky threw another plaid flannel into his suitcase and checked the time. Steve would be picking him up in half an hour.

“God, yes,” he said to his computer, where Becca sat feeding Danny on Skype. “This semester has been nuts. I’m so glad I got that second class but it’s just a ton of work.” Bucky really did love Russian History, and the students were super invested in the subject, but the extra time he devoted to that, to Russian Club, and to prepping his juniors for their AP exams was stressing him out. A week at home surrounded by friends and family (and eating himself into a coma) was sorely needed.

Becca cocked her head to the side, mouth quirking up a little. “You’re coming in with Steve, right?”

“Yep. Driving to New Haven in Steve’s car, then we’re taking the train together.” Steve had texted Bucky a week earlier with the idea of them going together. It made sense logistically. Bucky was in no way excited about sitting with Steve for nearly three hours on a train. Nope. Not even a little bit.

“You’re gonna be okay?” Becca sounded concerned, but the pitch of her voice and the curl of her lip upward suggested otherwise.

“It’s a trip into the city, Becca, it’s not a damn boat around the world,” Bucky demurred. Although _that_ idea sparked a visual of Steve wearing nothing but a Speedo, sipping something delicious from a coconut while Bucky sat next to him on a matching deck chair, working on a book. Hot and domestic. Bucky filed the whole dream away for later. “He’s going to go see his parents, I’m gonna be with you guys and the kids. We might hang out at some point but I’m not too concerned.”

“Cute,” Becca drawled, buttoning her blouse and patting Danny on the back until he made a big, echoing burp. Bucky’s heart flipped. “Damn, he’s gotten big.”

“I know. He’s even scooting around on the floor now. Well, it’s more like he’s pulling himself along like he’s going under barbed wire in a boot camp, but Jamie and Mikey love it. Meanwhile we’re already freaking out about having three mobile kids.” She looked slightly overwhelmed for a split second before pulling herself back together. “It’ll be fine.”

“Of course it’ll be fine. You’re the best mom I know. Uh, aside from Mom. Don’t tell her I said that, she won’t let me bring back any sweet potato pie leftovers.”

The buzzer went off. _Shit._ “Becks, I gotta go. Steve’s early.”

“Oh no no no, you are not doing this. You are letting me see this Steve guy you can’t shut up about!”

“I don’t talk about him that much!” Bucky protested, but it was bullshit and they both knew it. He did talk about Steve a lot. More than he should. It wasn’t his fault that nearly every fucking thing reminded him of Steve; the other day Bucky and Becca had been in a conversation about diapers (why Becca chose him to talk to about this stuff, he would never know) and Bucky had managed to work in how Steve was lactose intolerant. Bucky still didn’t know how he did that. Neither did Becca, who had just stared at him until Bucky realized what he’d done.

He buzzed Steve in and decided to keep Becca on the line just so she wouldn’t give him shit later.

Steve blew through the door like a sunshower. “Hey! You almost ready?” He saw the Skype open on Bucky’s computer and immediately looked stricken. “Oh! Sorry. I’ll go back to the car if you’re talking to someone.”

“Steve - I wouldn’t have buzzed you in if I didn’t want to see you.” Bucky pointed towards the computer. “Becca, this is Steve Rogers. Steve, that’s my sister Becca and her youngest son, Danny.”

Steve crept up to the screen with a shy wave. “Very nice to meet you both. Hi there, little guy!”

Becca smiled, and Bucky knew it was genuine: the light reached up to her eyes. She turned so Danny’s face was visible on screen. “Say hello to Bucky’s friend Steve, Peanut.” Danny made grabby hands towards Bucky, and Steve cooed, “Oh, isn’t he gorgeous. How old?”

“A year in January. I was just telling Buck that he’s trying to crawl and even stand a little bit. I’m not gonna survive when he starts walking around with his brothers.”

“I’m an only child and I was more than enough trouble for my parents, so I give you a lot of credit.” Steve beamed at Danny, who buried his face into Becca’s shoulder. “Aw, look, he got all shy!” Steve exclaimed, and the look on his face did crazy things to Bucky’s intestines. Almost as if someone threw them in a washing machine and set it to the highest spin cycle.

“We should get going or we’ll miss the train,” he said, zipping his suitcase with a little more force than was strictly necessary. “Becks, I’ll text when we’re close.”

“Sounds good. Nice to meet you, Steve! Danny - say ‘bye, Bucky Bear!’”

“Okay bye!” Bucky shouted and cut off the Skype feed. He resolutely ignored Steve’s look of absolute giddiness. “Bucky Bear?” he said, glee spreading across his face like a wildfire.

“I will buy you coffee every week for a year if you drop it,” Bucky growled, and Steve just shook his head. “Nope. Tempting, but not good enough. I’m gonna need that story by the end of today.”

“Goddammit, Becca,” Bucky hissed under his breath, watching Steve practically waltz out the door. He couldn’t be that mad, not when Steve’s ass was just... _there_. Hidden behind his jeans, of course. But still. It was there.

Taunting.

 

* * *

 

“That is the cutest thing I have ever heard,” Steve gasped. His face was scrunched into the type of expression one might wear when meeting a baby puppy.

“Yeah, well, now you belong to a very select group of people who know about Bucky Bear.” Bucky plopped down into the train seat and plugged his phone into the wall outlet. Steve kept smirking to himself as he stowed his back in the overhead bin, and sat down. “Who said you got the window seat, huh Bucky Bear?” he asked, his eyes sparkling.

“First of all, I fucking hate you. Second, come on, my phone is dying and I don’t want to reach over you the whole time.”

“Yeah, because you insisted we listen to your music the whole way down here and you didn’t plug in your phone.”

“It’s your car! I didn’t want to be inconsiderate.”

“Well, this is your punishment for making me listen to Katy Perry the entire way here.”

“I think you liked ‘Swish Swish’.”

“Yeah, the first time I heard it. The thirteenth time I wanted to put Katy Perry in the basket she was singing about.”

Bucky shrugged. “Swish swish, bish.”

“Oh God, enough, or I will call you Bucky Bear for the rest of the trip!” Steve pushed his shoulder into Bucky’s.

Across the aisle, a silver-haired woman put down her Kindle and leaned over to Steve, beaming at both men. “Can I just say you two are so adorable? You even bicker like a sweet couple.”

Steve let out a sharp, sudden laugh, one Bucky had never heard before. It was high-pitched, weird for Steve’s natural baritone. “Oh, I’m not his boyfriend. Just his friend.”

Well. That was definitely an answer any lingering questions Bucky had about what was going on between he and Steve. Bucky stared out the window, his heart wringing itself into a sodden lump in his chest, while the woman replied, “My mistake! But if you do decide to date, you’d clearly be perfect for each other.”

 _NOT HELPING, LADY_ Bucky wanted to scream. But he just coughed and rubbed at his eyes a little while Steve just smiled that Steve smile that was so perfect and guileless it could probably clear Bucky’s skin, pay his taxes, prove Trump colluded with the Russians to steal the election, etc. “I’ll keep that in mind, ma’am,” he said with a little nod of assent.

Bucky spend the majority of the ride facing the outside world, because it was infinitely less heart-smushing than what was going on inside the train car. He could feel Steve next to him, tense and uncertain, then slowly wilting into some other emotion he couldn’t recognize. Bucky fell asleep in short order, and slept through the main part of the journey through southern Connecticut. He woke up when the train hit a slight bump just out of Stamford, and, blinking in the blinding sunshine, noticed a warmth on his right side where the sun wasn’t hitting him.

He looked down, and his heart caught in his throat. Steve had dozed off too, his head on Bucky’s shoulder.

God, Bucky was so _fucked_. Steve looked perfectly peaceful. The creases that constantly lined his face when he was thinking or teaching were gone. Bucky had finally visited one of Steve’s Art History classes and had been in awe of how engaged and passionate he was for the entire hour, how connected he got to each student. Shield Academy was small, so classes generally only topped out at eight or nine students, which allowed the instructors to connect with their pupils at a much deeper level. Steve went further than that - he came from a pedagogical training background that emphasized student-led classrooms, and he often had his students break off into groups to unpack a piece of art and come back to the full class with an analysis of it. Bucky had stood in the back of the room as Steve worked, watching how all of the students were falling in love with his thoughtful presence.

_“Look at the chiaroscuro on this Rembrandt,” Steve raved as he flipped through the slides. His students took notes diligently on their tablets or laptops, although Steve didn’t bring any tech to class aside from his phone. His class schedule was kept in a old leather-bound notebook, like something soldiers would use when deployed. “The light reflecting on Bathsheba’s skin is in direct contrast to the dark golds and reds of the background. It makes her body illuminated, even if she weren’t naked. But her skin is layered to such a degree that it brings out the natural light in the imagined room. We’ll be studying a lot of nudes in this section of the semester, but this one is probably Rembrandt’s most famous because of its tremendous empathy. I want you all to see that before we’re done here today. The empathy the artist has for the subject.”_

The whole class made Bucky want to be a better teacher, and he couldn’t think of a greater compliment than that.

He nudged Steve when they hit Harlem, although it pained him to do it. He wanted to wake up to that face on his shoulder more often. Hell, every day.

Steve blinked at the disturbance, then pawed at his eyes like a cat. It was the cutest fucking thing Bucky had ever seen.

“How long was I out,” Steve whispered, still slurry from sleep.

“Don’t know - I fell asleep before you did.”

“Ah. Oh well.” Steve gently nudged him, then hid a yawn behind his hand. “Thanks for being my pillow, then.”

“Well, uh, you’re welcome,” Bucky scraped out, the feeling in his gut turning into a gaping mouth, some feral animal gumming through his insides. He wasn’t sure if it was want or the void from wanting.

 

* * *

 

“Great,” Bucky said as the two walked into the main lobby of Grand Central. Freddie Barnes stood by the center kiosk in her white North Face jacket, waving frantically. Standing near her was a tall, thin, blonde woman who could only be one person. “I think our Moms found each other.”

Steve looked horrified. It would have been funny if Bucky didn’t feel the exact same way. “Oh, shit.”

“Good thing my Mom is great and not embarrassing at all.”

“Really?”

“The first part yes, the second part, hell no. She’s the type who brings out every embarrassing photo of you that ever existed and gives them out like party favors to anybody you bring home for the first time. There’s usually no second time.”

“What kind -” Steve started to say, before the woman who was obviously his mother spotted him and dashed over to give him an engulfing hug. For interminable minutes the air hummed with quiet sniffles. Bucky remembered Steve saying something about how his mom would cry at anything, and he clearly wasn’t wrong; the woman wiped her eyes after pulling away from Steve.

“Well, isn’t that a nice greeting for a mother,” Freddie said, tone slightly pointed as she looked over at Bucky.

“Oh, Lord, I’m never going to hear the end of this one, huh?”

“Never!” Freddie replied cheerily before grabbing Bucky and hugging him tight. “Missed you!”

“You too, Ma,” Bucky said, kissing her on the cheek.

Steve waited until they were done greeting each other before pointing to his mom. “Bucky, my mom. Mom, Bucky.”

“Hello, Bucky!” Sarah said with a smile that matched her son in radiance. She wore a beautiful white peacoat that took a lot of guts to wear in a place like New York, where it was begging to get pooped by by a vengeful pigeon. Dangling from her hand was a keychain with various charms from local causes dangling on it - Bucky managed to catch one that said _Nevertheless She Persisted_ before Sarah gave Bucky a hug that nearly equaled the grip she’d put on her own son. From the crush of her arms, Bucky managed to squeak “that’s my mom. Mom, this is Steve.”

“I figured.” Freddie hugged Steve. “My name’s Winifred, but everyone calls me Freddie, so you better call me that too.”

“Sounds good to me!” Steve replied.

“Also, I was just telling Sarah how much I’ve heard about you from Bucky.”

“Wait. You guys already know each other?” Steve asked, slightly incredulous.

“Just through Freddie’s husband,” Sarah said, with a bit of pink coloring her cheeks. Steve definitely got her coloring, as well as her eyes; that seaglass blue, flecked with green. “I work with some of his athletes and Freddie’s come to some of the hospital functions as a thank-you for the work we do with the Liberty.”

“Oh, _right_ ,” Bucky said, remembering now. “Dad did say something about that back in June!”

“June?” Steve looked over at Bucky, eyes more shy than Bucky had ever seen them. “You told your Dad about me back in June?”

“Uh. Yeah?” Bucky suddenly wanted to escape down the corridor to the nearest Amtrak train that could take him as far away as humanly possible. Freddie just grinned. “Well, George told me about it, so I texted Sarah this morning to see if she wanted to come down together, and here we are!”

“Our parents are co-conspiring,” Bucky muttered. “Heaven help all of us.”

“Oh, and guess who wanted to tag along?” Freddie pointed to the MTA ticketing booth. Bucky let out a bark of surprise. “Mikey!”

He opened up his arms so his nephew could run into them. Becca followed behind, pushing a very disgruntled Danny in a stroller.

Michael Proctor was the tank of the three children. Effervescent, indefatigable, and if Bucky could put money on it, bulletproof. The kid could fall down 40 times and pick himself up with a laugh after every one, provided you had soft pretzels to offer. He was clearly all Becca, who’d scrapped with the boys of the neighborhood all the time when she and Bucky were kids.

Becca hugged Bucky, and after all of the introductions were made, she scritched the back of Mikey’s head. “You ready for the ride home, Bear?”

“Oookay,” Mikey drawled, in that funny way he spoke, like everything around him was incredibly boring. Steve chuckled. “How many do you have, Becca?”

“Three. This one is the middle.”

“And he’s a perfect little weirdo, just like his Mom,” Bucky said, attempting to get up from his squatting position on the floor but Mikey was holding on to him so tight he couldn’t move.

“Shut your mouth,” Becca replied with affection. “Are you all taking the subway back to Brooklyn?”

“Actually, we were going to get lunch and take a cab back. Can’t do the subway too much,” Sarah said. “I get a little claustrophobic down there.”

“Not a problem,” Bucky replied. He looked at Steve, suddenly a little unsure. “So, I’ll talk to you later on in the week?”

“Yeah, sounds good.” Steve ran his tongue along his teeth, like he was thinking about something.

Usually, Bucky would just hug him goodbye, but Becca would make fun of him for the rest of the week - and quite possibly, his life. A handshake would be awkward. Bucky was about to opt for the lamest of all options - a high five - when Steve pulled him in for a close-bodied embrace. It lingered just long enough for Bucky to breathe in the sandalwood cologne Steve always wore. Bucky loved that smell. He’d often wondered what it would be like to come home to his apartment after a long day to find that scent layered between his bedsheets.

Bucky resisted the palpable urge to bury his head into Steve’s neck and inhale like a dying man. It wasn’t too hard to keep his longing for Steve tamped down (yay, repressing emotions!), but then the guy would do stuff like this and it took every single muscle in Bucky’s body to keep him from pulling Steve’s head to the right, to angle their lips together, to have what he’d been craving for months. _Barnes you are in the middle of Grand Central._

“Thanks for coming with me,” Steve murmured, right into the curl of Bucky’s ear. _Fuck._

When Bucky was a kid, he loved the X-Men arcade game at the Coney Island Boardwalk. While other kids wanted to play Wolverine or Nightcrawler, Bucky always wanted to play Storm, because of the way she would literally transform into a tornado and blow through the scene, destroying all of the evildoers in her wake.

Steve’s low voice, said that close, turned Bucky’s insides into that arcade game and his heart into a tornado, ripping up the foundation.

But as fast as the touch came, it went. Steve let go, and Bucky’s hands kept a slight curl, memorizing the angle of Steve’s elbows, the curve of his tricep.

As Steve walked away with Sarah, Bucky felt something else walk with them. Something a bit shambling and imperfect, but complete, and real, and valuable.

Becca hummed loudly, popping his train of thought. “Man,” she said, taking the breaks off Danny’s stroller, “you’ve got it bad.”

“Shut up, Becca.”

“Don’t say ‘shut up’ in front of the kids,” she said blithely. “And you know I’m right. If I had any service in here, I’d play ‘U Got It Bad’ on my Spotify.”

They walked down to the subway platform in relative silence. Mikey insisted on holding Bucky’s hand, and stopping to look at every busker, while Danny would randomly point at people who looked like Henry or George. “That’s not Daddy, Noodle,” Becca kept saying quietly, much to Bucky’s amusement.

“While I hate to take sides with my children,” Freddie said gently, which made both of her children snort, “I’m an old bird, been around the block a few times, done my share of -”

“NOPE,” Becca and Bucky shouted, unanimous in their disgust. Freddie laughed, a sound like fireworks, hot and crackling. “I’m just saying! I’ve seen things. And I’m pretty positive the feelings aren’t completely one-sided, James.”

“Ma, he’s straight,” Bucky said, going a little stiff in his spine.

“Yeah. ‘Straight.’” Becca made air-quotes around it. Bucky sighed. “I know what I’m talking about, Becks.”

“So do I!” Freddie replied, because they wanted to gang up on Bucky, he just knew it. “I know what I saw when you looked at Steve, and when he looked at you. Saw it with your father. Saw it when Becca brought home Henry to meet us for the first time.”

“Ma,” Bucky warned, gripping the pole in the subway car a little too firmly for his own liking, thankful Steve had reminded him to pack some gloves so he didn’t have to touch any subway handles bare-handed.

Little things like that made Bucky think... _maybe_.

But he couldn’t.

Freddie just smiled that Mom smile, and said, “I’m just saying,” which is what Freddie always said when she knew she was poking at a sensitive subject and would drop it... _for now._

The comment about _the look_ stayed with Bucky through the subway ride home, through his walk through Prospect Park with Becca and the kids, and finally during post-dinner decaf coffees he turned to his mother and demanded, “What kind of look?”

“Eh?” Freddie looked up from her mug, confused.

“What you were talking about this morning at Grand Central. The look people have.”

“ _Oh_.” Freddie grinned wolfishly, and held her coffee up to her son in a mock toast. “It’s like the world gets a little brighter, by a shade or two, when that person is around. There’s a glow.”

“Kinda makes people look stupid,” George intoned from his captain’s chair, before taking a bite of his chocolate chip cookie.

“So...Steve looks stupid?”

“Like an imbecile, kid,” Freddie said. “And, it’s almost impossible to conceive, but you looked even dumber.”

“Oh God.” Bucky put down his coffee and curled up on the couch, a poked caterpillar. “This is not good.”

“Why not?” Freddie asked.

“Because if he’s just going through a _phase_ or something, then I don’t want to be his...his bisexual audition piece. And we _work_ together. This is so not good.”

“Then talk to him, bubs,” George said. “Otherwise you’ll end up never finding out if he’s hot for the spedoinka.”

“You know, I appreciate you guys and how cool you are with me being bi, but sometimes it’s _too much support_ ,” Bucky announced, as Freddie got up from her chair solely to smack George on the arm.

 

* * *

 

_STEVE: Hey! You around for pre-Turkey Day shenanigans on Wed?_

_STEVE: Thinking some of that Two Roads and a_ Star Wars _Marathon_

 _Yoooooo that sounds so great but I can’t on Wed  
_ _Going to get drinks with a friend from college_

_STEVE: Fun fun_

 

* * *

 

 

Sitwell brought along a handsome man with mischievous brown eyes to Dirty Precious on Wednesday. “This is Jack Rollins,” he said, looking downright bashful. Bucky broke out into a huge, genuine smile. “Awesome! I’ve heard so much about you!” _And hopefully you don’t know about all the times I’ve gone to town on your now boyfriend’s ass_ , he inwardly pleaded with whatever god that would listen.

“Oh God, I can only imagine,” Rollins replied with an exaggerated eyeroll, but he linked his arm with Sitwell’s and leaned into his boyfriend’s side knowingly. Sitwell, for his part, looked dazzled, and Bucky couldn’t be happier for them. The guy had gone through hell when he’d come out to his parents in college and Bucky had hoped he’d find someone who could make him happy.

The evening passed in a relaxed blur of drinks, catching up, and one too many group pictures, one of which - a shot of Bucky with Sitwell that Rollins had taken - ended up being posted to Facebook at 2AM with the caption _don’t even ask._ In the photo, Sitwell was sitting on Bucky’s lap with a come-hither look on his face, and Bucky had pressed one index finger to his mouth in a “shhh” gesture.

Not even 15 minutes later a comment from Nat popped up underneath the photo. It simply read _WHUT._ Bucky howled and showed it to Sitwell in the back of their Uber, who just shook his head. “That’s on you, babe - you phrased that like I was about to sit on your face later.”

“There’s only _one_ face you’re sitting on later,” Rollins slurred from his position against the car window, but it had enough heat that Bucky looked away.

 

* * *

 

NAT: Details  
_NAT Now  
_ NAT BITCH WAKE UP

_Everything hurts and I’m dying_

_NAT: No excuses TELL ME EVERYTHING_

_About what?!_

_NAT: THAT PIC YOU POSTED OF YOU AND SITWELL_

Ohhhhh no no no nothing happened he’s with that guy Rollins  
_He’s the one who took the picture  
_ We were just fucking around and I was wasted

NAT: Oh fuck  
_NAT: Lolololol  
_ NAT: That photo looked like you were about to unzip his pants

 _LOL nope I’m currently besotted to one oblivious blond and it’s ruining my life  
_ _Along with this hangover holy shit_

_NAT: You’re a moron_

_I know_

_NAT: No you don’t_

“What the fuck?” Bucky jerked back at the sound of his phone going off with Nat’s face staring out at him. Nat was calling him, when she _knew_ he was face down in bed. Horrible friend.

He picked up the phone and didn’t even bother saying hello. “Nat, whyyyy,” he whined, stuffing his face underneath his pillow. Downstairs he could hear the sound of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on the TV, which meant Freddie was close to coming upstairs and yelling at him to get up anyway and help her with meal prep. Still. Let a guy suffer for a little bit in peace.

Nat had zero sympathy. “First of all, you really are an idiot. And second of all, there’s zero easy way to transition this conversation so I’m just gonna crash into the next topic - I’m pregnant.”

“Oh my god!” Bucky shot up in bed so fast he instantly grabbed his face with his free hand, feeling his head suddenly get attacked by thousands of Lilliputians with M-16s. “Fuuuuuuuck.”

“That get you out of bed?” Nat asked, bone dry.

“Nat, I’m going to be _way_ more excited about all of this once the room stops spinning.” Bucky settled back down into his nest of pillows and blankets, only vaguely aware of Freddie yelling from downstairs, “The dead man walks! Good timing, you can help me with the stuffing.”

“Swell,” Bucky ground out. “But seriously, Nat, I’m so excited for you, and I swear, once I can stand upright today, I’m going to call back and I want all the details. Do you want to tell my Mom?”

“I’ll tell her at Christmas when we come back into the city,” Nat said. “And by then it’ll be hard to deny that I’m knocked up - I’m already out of my first trimester.”

“Is that why you kept skipping workouts with me and Steve?”

“Yes. Partially due to puking a lot, and partially because I wanted to see how long you’d last in an enclosed space with the guy before blowing him in the Roman chair.”

“Sneaky little bastard,” Bucky said approvingly.

“You know it. Love you. Take some multivitamins and drink some water. You’re gonna be an uncle again.”

“Yay.” Bucky pushed his hair out of his eyes. “Please name it something insanely Russian, like Sasha or Olga or something.”

“I’m not the only one having this baby, Buck.”

“You’re the one pushing it out of you! You get priority.”

“Goodbye, James. Happy Thanksgiving.”

“Happy Thanksgiving. Love you.”

“You too, Buck.”

When Bucky got downstairs to the kitchen, Freddie waited until he was settled and had a giant mug of coffee in front of him before asking, “Nat’s pregnant?”

“Yep.” Bucky breathed in the steam from the cup of Starbucks Thanksgiving Blend like it was oxygen.

“Want me to pretend I don’t know so she can tell me in person?” Freddie asked, because she was the smartest person on earth.

“Yep.”

“No problem.”

“You’re the best, Mom.”

“I know. Now drink that coffee, you’ve got Brussels sprouts to wash.”

 

* * *

 

Thanksgiving at the Barnes residence was usually low-key; Freddie and George tended to save their blowouts for Christmas and New Year’s. But Freddie did not play around when when it came to the meal itself. Becca, Henry, and the kids wouldn’t be over until 5, but they’d eat turkey, stuffing, brussels sprouts, sweet potato, and roasted corn with the family before going to the Proctors for dessert. Fine with Bucky - more pumpkin pie to take back to Connecticut.

Halfway through the afternoon Bucky took a break to stretch his back and texted Steve _Happy Turkey Day! Gobble Gobble!_ before going back to the too-big box of ricotta pie his mother wanted pre-cut for easier serving later. On a whim, he sent Steve a picture of his sweaty, flour-stained face. _Getting put to work #dobbyisafreeelf_ he wrote.

No response.

It nibbled at him through dinner and dessert, although it didn’t take away his appetite - he was concerned, not an idiot - and Bucky tried again during his tryptophan haze on the couch while the Giants fucked up another play call. _You watching this shit? Damn, Eli, you’re making those Super Bowls fade real fast_.

“Something wrong?” Freddie sat next to him on the couch, already changed into her snowflake-print fleece pajamas.

“Maybe?” Bucky stared at his phone. He couldn’t tell if Steve had read his message, which compounded the slow burn of anxiety. “Steve’s been weirdly quiet.”

“Well, it’s Thanksgiving, hon. Relax.” Freddie squeezed Bucky’s knee.

“Yeah.” Bucky stared at the TV, allowing his eyes to blur. He took another sip of red wine. When the third quarter ended with no response from Steve, Bucky turned off his phone for the rest of the night. No point in obsessing over something like that during a family holiday.

Even if it did make his stomach clench.

 

* * *

 

The rest of the break was spent hanging out with college friends, answering work emails, and getting grading done. Finals were two weeks after break, and Bucky was _not_ looking forward to the crush of extra help hours and panicked emails from students. Becca wanted to get some Black Friday shopping done, but Bucky refused, preferring to help Freddie decorate the house for Christmas and relax before the maelstrom. He texted Steve one more time, asking if it was cool if they headed back to Barkstead on Saturday to avoid the holiday crush. The response he’d gotten - a terse looking _k_ \- had been the only communication Bucky had had with Steve since their conversation a week earlier.

Bucky spent Saturday morning packing, hanging out with the nephews, and racking his brain about what he could have possibly done wrong, and couldn’t think of a damn thing. He didn’t like how obsessive he felt about it, or the knot that was sitting near his solar plexus. He could feel his Brooklyn Coffee Company iced coffee sliding around it, doing nothing to break it up; rather, it seemed to calcify.

It compounded when Bucky got to Grand Central and saw Steve dragging his suitcase down the street towards him. He smiled, and Steve returned it, and they exchanged pleasantries about their respective weeks off, but it was a trapdoor and Bucky knew it. One wrong step and the bottom would fall out.

When he was ten, Bucky saw the movie _Ferngully: The Last Rainforest_. The movie as a whole was slightly heavy-handed, but the slippery, oozy villain Hexxus scared the fuck out of him. Hexxus was made of crude oil, and could take on any shape he wished. His climactic song, “Toxic Love,” took place amidst drains and ladders, perfect to slip and slither around. Bucky felt that thick, oily mass push through him as he sat down next to Steve on the train ride home, with all of the toxicity and none of the sly humor of Tim Curry’s vocal performance.

The train ride home was painful. Steve put in his headphones and quietly listened to music on his phone, while Bucky stared out the window and swallowed around the slow moving, putrid Hexxus in his gut.

It wasn’t until they crossed into Bridgeport that Bucky couldn’t  hold back any longer. He nudged Steve so he’d take out his headphones. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Steve replied.

“You don’t look fine,” Bucky said quickly, to make sure he got it out before he turned chicken.

“I guess I’m tired,” Steve said, his tone still strangely even, but he was talking. “Did you have a good break?”

“Yeah. Got to spend it with my family, so that’s always good.” Bucky adjusted so he was facing more towards Steve, angling away from the window. “Saw some college friends. Got to hang out with a good friend of mine and his boyfriend, which was awesome - been trying to get them to get their heads out their asses and date for weeks.”

Something changed in Steve’s face, as if the tension in his jaw was falling away by millimeters. “Boyfriend, huh?”

“Yeah. My friend Sitwell - I posted some pictures on Facebook of our night out? So stupid, I’m never drinking vodka cranberries ever again.” Bucky chuckled, tucking a piece of stray hair behind his ear. “He’s been in love with this dude, Rollins, for a really long time. Seeing them together was one of the highlights of my trip, really. They’re adorable. I better be in the wedding or I’ll murder him.”

There was something dawning behind Steve’s eyes, like a comprehension of a foreign language.“I saw the pictures you put up on Facebook and I thought you were…” he started.

Bucky shrugged. “Nah. I mean, we’ve hooked up before, but it was never serious. He’s not my type.”

Steve stared down at his lap, rubbing his thumbs along the sides of his index fingers. “What is your type?” he asked.

“Hm?”

“What is your type?” Steve repeated.

“Uh.” Bucky had no idea where this conversation was going but he knew walking this tightrope needed to be done with care, with attention, with a focus he definitely didn’t fucking have, but he could try. “Well. Let’s just say Sitwell is a bit intense for me. Really wrapped up in his work - he started out in teaching economics and now he’s a private accountant - and he doesn’t want the same things I do. He doesn’t want to have kids, for one.”

“You want kids?” Steve’s voice was still so, so soft, and his eyes were so unreadable, that Bucky didn’t know whether or not he was mad or sad.

“Definitely.” Bucky forged ahead. This was just like talking to Nat, or Sam, about any of his dreams or goals. “I’m completely in love with my nephews. They’ve gotten me through some pretty hard times, and I look at how happy they’ve made my sister and her husband...and they’re total idiots and they wake me up too damn early all the time and they eat the weirdest things - ketchup and jam on a sandwich, are you fucking kidding me - but I look at them and I want that, I want it _bad_ , you know? Maybe not three of them, for the sake of my sanity, but I do want them.” Bucky stared back out the window as the train made its final push into New Haven’s Union Station. “I know what I want, let’s put it that way. Didn’t know for a while, but I’ve gotten around to growing up a little. Unfortunately,” he added to lighten up the mood.

Steve didn’t say anything. Bucky didn’t look at him, afraid of what he might find in his friend’s face.

Steve was silent for the rest of the trip back to Barkstead, only speaking when Bucky asked if he needed money for gas. Something was different about him - he didn’t seem upset or angry, just deep in thought. The space between his brows knit together like it did when he was concentrating on getting grading done during one of their nights at either of their apartments, looking over assignments or doing lesson plans.

_Back in the 203 - let me know when you want to get together, I gotta congratulate you in person!_

_Nat: Does tomorrow work? Brunch with the girls? I think Carol’s coming up too_

_Perf  
_ _Also things got weird with Steve, I’ll tell you about it_

_Nat: Oh boy_

_Yeah  
_ _Gotta go he’s dropping me off_

 

* * *

 

Thank God for elevators, Bucky thought as he dragged his bag into his apartment and flipped the key into the bowl on the side table. Freddie had sent him home with tons of leftovers that needed to be fridged immediately, and the weight of the pies and turkey and stuffing in Bucky’s bag had made schlepping it through New York and New Haven a pain in his ass. Bucky flexed his arm to get some of the feeling back into it, and had just set about the business of unpacking and stuffing dirty clothes into the laundry when the buzzer went off.

“Bucky? Can I come up?”

“Steve?” Bucky stared at his intercom. “What’s up? Something wrong?”

“No, everything’s fine. I just...I need to come up.”

There was an urgency on the outskirts of Steve’s voice that worried Bucky, but he just said “Okay!” as brightly as he could, and buzzed him in. He’d dropped Bucky off with a quiet “I’ll see you on Monday” and he’d helped get the bags out of the car, but that was about it. Bucky occupied himself for the few minutes it would take for Steve to reach his floor by unpacking a few items and doing a cursory overlook of the living room to make sure it wasn’t too messy.

The doorbell rang, and he opened it, fully expecting to say “The bathroom is down the hall to your left” or something like that but Bucky never got around to it, because no sooner had he opened the door than Steve was yanking Bucky close, kicking the door shut behind them, and kissing him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *CACKLES*


	8. Burn

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A kiss goes wrong. A bad flashback. Bucky has brunch with the girls...and then chickens out. PEOPLE ARE COMPLICATED.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW warning: attempted assault. Explained further in the end notes.
> 
> Also, obviously Bucky's wearing the blue coat from TFA. DUH.

 

A few things went through Bucky’s mind in rapid succession as Steve’s mouth pressed against his, close-mouthed and cool and slightly chapped but still  _ there  _ and alive and shattering.

_ WHAT _

_ WHAT _

_ WHAT _

_ THIS IS FINALLY HAPPENING _

_ WHAT _

_ WHAT _

_ WE NEED TO TALK ABOUT THIS _

He broke off from the kiss and vocalized that last thought, rather breathlessly. Steve cupped his face with those strong, big hands that were still a little cold from the winter chill and whispered, against Bucky’s lips, “Do you want to talk or do you want to…” His thumb brushed against the corner of Bucky’s mouth.

_ Fuck. _

Talking later.

Bucky wrapped his arms tight around Steve’s middle, pulling him in, feeling that massive torso against his own, feeling like he could sink into the depths of him and drown there.

He ended up pinned against the inside wall, the warmth of Steve covering him like an electric blanket. Bucky let out a soft, guarded sound at the feel of all of this, a feeling he’d thought about many (many,  _ many _ ) times, but had never dared to dream could be actually real. Heat pooled in the small of his back, insistent and long overdue, as he risked sucking down on Steve’s lower lip. Steve responded by pulling back slightly and tracing the outline of Bucky’s mouth with his tongue, a move that nearly made Bucky come in his pants like a goddamn teenager.

The last time he’d had sex with anybody it had been over the summer with Sitwell, and while that was a fun way to pass the time and Sitwell was great in bed, but this, this was incendiary, Steve kissed like he  _ lived _ \- insistent, passionate, full of curiosity. His tongue carefully parted Bucky’s lips and Bucky welcomed it in, letting it curl against his own, tasting coffee and bits of oaty remnants. Alive, hearty, grounding. Steve made a noise against his mouth, and Bucky's body sprang to life.

Bucky’s hands wanted to go  _ everywhere _ \- first they were cupping Steve’s face, then pushing back through his hair, then sliding down the bulk of his arms to feel every muscle he’d been admiring for months. Steve was firm and  _ real _ , and all of this was actually  _ happening. _

He allowed his legs to open slightly under the pressure of Steve’s hips on his, and Steve sighed into his mouth and pressed closer to him. Bucky took that as permission to wrap one leg up around Steve’s middle, pinning them together, and Steve made another sound that had Bucky harder than granite within seconds. His jeans felt so tight he desperately wanted to rip them off, but that might be a little too much for one makeout session. Then again, who knew what this would lead to?

After a few more minutes of deep, filthy kissing that threatened to kill off all of Bucky’s desire to ever leave his apartment ever again, Steve moved his mouth down to Bucky’s neck, trailing his lips like a treasure map. Bucky let his head hit the wall with a thunk as Steve’s hand came up to brace the underside of his jaw, sucking kisses into the fragile skin near Bucky’s collarbone.

“Shit,” Bucky breathed. Steve stayed silent, dragging his tongue along the meat of Bucky’s throat. Bucky twined his hand in Steve’s hair, forcing him to stay put, and Steve groaned into the crook of his shoulder. Their hips pressed closer together. Bucky could feel Steve’s cock through the layers of clothes, just as hard and hot as his own, and then Steve’s leg was nudging between his, knocking them slightly apart. The wall was extremely necessary - it was becoming more and more difficult to stay upright. Bucky wanted to grind his dick against Steve’s leg, to drag Steve down to the floor and beg him to take him apart. 

His heart pounded as Steve twisted his own fingers into Bucky’s hair bun and  _ pulled _ -

Three years ago, Bucky took part in the Ice Bucket challenge with Nat and Sam. Pierce had thought it was kind of dumb, but he hadn’t told Bucky he  _ couldn’t  _ do it, so Bucky sat in a chair while Nat poured a bucket of water and ice cubes over his head. The first thing he felt was shock, then a desire to run away from the burning pain of the cold.

That feeling - like every vein and capillary was doused in ice water - shot through Bucky when Steve got ahold of his hair. Catlike, he twisted himself out of the grip of both Steve and the wall, backing up to the end of his living room sofa, away from the attack. Away from the ice. 

Steve looked at him, stunned, lips reddened and swollen, hair mussed, collar slightly upended. “What’s wrong?”

Bucky put the pad of his index finger to his own lips, still feeling the pressure of Steve’s mouth against his, the thick weight of Steve’s tongue licking past his teeth. His heart galloped, a thoroughbred loosed from the pen. “I - I can’t -” 

Steve blinked, then his eyes hit the floor for a moment. When they flicked back up, Bucky started: Steve looked impossibly small. Maybe this was how he looked when he was younger, so scared and fragile and trying to get in control of everything. “I’m sorry. I...I got carried away.”

_ No. No you didn’t. Come back here. Put your mouth on me again. I’m just so fucked up and I got triggered and I want things to be okay. I need them to be okay. Your lips belong near mine. _

“I can’t explain now,” Bucky said, dumbly. “I swear I will...I just can’t do this.”

Steve looked like he was the one who got a bucket of ice water thrown on him. With a small, embarrassed nod, he adjusted his clothing, and quietly slipped out the door, while Bucky gripped the side of the couch so hard he nearly ripped the fabric.

 

* * *

 

_ Alex was drunk. _

_ Well, that might be a little bit of a misnomer. Bucky had seen Alex drunk before. This was a stage beyond drunk, something that rendered him childlike but also strangely aggressive. He leaned against the window of the car as Bucky pulled up to the driveway of Alex’s house. When the car stopped, Alex peeled his face away to look at Bucky; there was a long crease in his cheek from the seatbelt. “Hi,” he whispered, eyes barely open.  _

_ “Hi there,” Bucky said, just as quiet. He moved a hand over Alex’s hair to smooth it back. “You okay to get up the steps?” _

_ “Halp,” Alex slurred.  _

_ Bucky got out of the car, feeling nothing, a void curling low in his hip joints. It wasn’t as if this was a new occurrence, but sometimes, perversely, he liked it when Alex got this blackout drunk. Alex was less cagey, and could be prone to romantic flights of fancy in this state. Eventually Bucky would get brave enough to tell Natasha about this weird preference he had, but how could he phrase that in a way that wasn’t profoundly fucked up? “Hey Nat, I sometimes would rather have my boyfriend be shitfaced because he’s nicer to me that way”? Nope. _

_ He helped sling Alex’s arm over his shoulders and walked him up the steps of his porch, letting go just long enough to get his own key while Alex slid against the door.  _

**_BRRRING!_ **

_ Bucky jumped back a foot. “Holy shit,” he hissed. Alex burst out laughing. “The doorbell...fuck -” he laughed, breathing Scotch and half-digested Altoid into Bucky’s face.  _

_ “Okay, okay,” Bucky nodded, letting both of them into the house, avoiding turning on the light so Alex wouldn’t freak out. The consequence of that was fumbling around blind and banging his hip against the island while Alex wobbled towards his bedroom like a newborn goat. “M’ sleeping in my pants,” he announced to the mirror in the hallway.  _

_ “You can sleep in whatever you want, just sleep upright. Don’t want you aspirating.” Bucky shucked his own shirt and pants once he got into the bedroom, making sure to fold them on the computer chair so Alex wouldn’t kill himself tripping over them if he got up to piss. _

_ “I won’t puke, you know that.”  _

_ Bucky jerked forward as Alex’s hips made contact with his, effectively trapping him against the iron wrought bed frame. “Hi,” he murmured, directly into Bucky’s ear, the sound waves lapping at a deep, secret place in him that very few people could touch. Everything could be going to shit - everything  _ was  _ going to shit - and that voice, in that timbre, could have Bucky drop everything, follow Alex to Mordor and back again. He wasn’t sure it was healthy. Actually, Bucky was pretty positive it was toxic as fuck.  _

_ So he turned himself around, hands finding their way into the back pockets of Alex’s jeans. “Hi.”  _

_ “Wanna?” Alex’s voice itself reeked of alcohol. _

_ Bucky paused. Alex kissed him in the vacuum of noise the pause made. _

_ For a few moments, as the two moved to fall on the bed, Alex covering Bucky with his frame, Bucky didn’t mind. Alex was such a fucking good kisser, and they hadn’t kissed like this in a long time. They hadn’t really done anything in a long time. Any time Bucky wanted to, and asked for it, Alex was “busy,” or his “back hurt,” or there was that three month span in the summer where Alex thought he’d torn his rotator cuff. Bucky had complained about that one to Natasha, who’d raised an eyebrow and murmured something about “fucking tops can’t let guys ride it” before loudly sucking the rest of her protein shake down through the straw. _

_ There was something off about all of it, obviously. But Bucky pushed against it. He was Sisyphus, and dammit, he would get Alex up the mountain if it killed him. _

_ Alex smashed his mouth into Bucky’s, inelegant and painful. He tasted like whiskey and the barest remnants of really, really strong Wakandan coffee from T’Challa and Ororo’s party. Bucky had insisted on decaf, because that stuff, while delicious, was like casually sipping on speed, while Alex had growled, “Oh yeah, get that shit in me” while Nat watched the both of them with that look on her face that filled Bucky with a silent shame. He kissed Alex back as Alex ground his crotch down so the fabric of his jeans pressed into Bucky’s underwear, lightly scratching the sensitive skin around his dick. When Bucky hitched a breath at the feeling, Alex grinned, all teeth, and dove back in to attack his mouth. _

_ And yeah. For a little while it was good. _

_ Until it wasn’t. _

_ “Babe,” Bucky whispered, between hard, insistent kisses. Kisses that looked to collapse civilizations. “Hey, babe.” _

_ Alex shook his head, dove into the tender flesh underneath Bucky’s jaw, nipping it just so. Bucky cried out. The fleeting head start he’d gotten to an erection vanished. “Alex,” he tried again. Alex hummed - his hand reached into Bucky’s hair and yanked so hard Bucky yelped in pain. _

_ He suddenly became aware of Alex’s strength and size. The world narrowed down to not what was happening in that moment, but what  _ could  _ happen. What Alex could do. Bucky was a strong, athletic guy, but Alex was a bruiser. He’d wrestled at Triskelion, and was now in charge of exceptional athletes. _

_ Alex could do whatever the fuck he wanted, really. _

_ For two seconds Bucky froze.  _

_ He’d read about this in high school and then in college during a special seminar in how to handle if students came to teachers with issues involving assault or rape. “The body can have an animalistic tendency to freeze, under self-preservation,” the consultant had said, while Bucky scribbled down notes. “It’s out of a desire to protect oneself from any further harm. If I freeze, no one will see me. Or the assailant will leave me alone.” _

_ She’d gone on to talk about how she’d met with students in the past who’d blamed themselves for their own assaults as a result of freezing up - they wished they had fought back. The woman had reminded Bucky and the class that in no way does freezing up mean they are at any way culpable for their assault. “It’s a result of biology and survival,” she’d said.  _

_ Bucky had wondered what that meant.  _

_ He didn’t need to wonder now. _

_ The woman had also talked about the adrenaline that can produce a ‘fight or flight response.’  _

_ Suddenly, Bucky felt like he could have torn a helicopter door off its hinges. He rolled over, pinned Alex down on the bed with his own hips straddling Alex’s legs, clapped his hands over Alex’s face and shouted “Stop. Now.” _

_ Alex blinked up at him, kiss-swollen and sweating. Not surprised, more disgruntled. Even annoyed. “Okaaaaaay,” he sighed, like a kid being told he can only have one popsicle.  _

_ Bucky rolled off of him and to the edge of the bed, the side closest to the bathroom and the wall. Alex slunk away and over the side of the mattress, an amoeba, until his body molded itself to the floor like glue. Bucky stayed put for several minutes, wondering if he should say something, anything, over the thundering blood between his ears. _

_ Alex snored. _

_ Bucky left him there. _

_ The next morning Alex didn’t remember anything but looked suitably chagrined when Bucky had summarized the night’s events. “I’m not drinking for a while,” he pronounced before planting a kiss on Bucky’s forehead. His lips were greasy were Pepto-Bismol. _

_ Alex kept that promise for a month, at least. _

By the time Bucky had been able to tell anyone about what had happened, it was months after he and Alex had broken up, and Bucky had to physically restrain Nat from driving to Triskelion campus and gutting Alex like a fish.

Over time, Bucky slowly let the rest of his inner circle know about it, and swore them to secrecy, although it took a while to convince Sharon. “That’s near  _ abuse _ , Bucky,” she’d argued. 

“I know. But I’d rather just forget about it. I mean,” Bucky hastily added, seeing Sharon’s eyebrows shoot up, “I just want to move forward and focus on the positives. I’m free, right? And I deserve better.”

And Bucky had believed his own rah-rah bullshit, right up until Steve crashed into his life.

 

* * *

 

“You’ve been with other dudes since Alex, right? None of them pulled your hair?” Darcy asked wonderingly. 

Her partner, Carol, a nurse at Hartford Hospital and extremely pregnant, eyed Bucky’s hair, now smoothed up and away from his face. “I’d yank on that till dawn, to be honest.”

She put her head in her hands when Bucky eyed her with amusement. “I’m sorry,” she moaned, “this damn baby’s got my hormones all screwed up.”

“Seriously,” Darcy said, rubbing Carol’s shoulder. “The other day she nearly jumped our OB-GYN at her appointment.”

Bucky huffed a laugh into his coffee.

“There’s a difference now, isn’t there,” Nat offered from her spot across the table, looking at Bucky intently over her mug of decaf rooibos tea. “This time it matters. Right?”

Nat was perceptive in a way that would be terrifying to anyone else, but to Bucky it was just annoying as hell. “I guess.”

“You guess?” Nat dumped another pack of stevia into her tea before reaching for a blueberry muffin. “You’ve been dying to get into Steve’s pants since his campus tour.”

“Shut up!” Bucky looked around the restaurant, suddenly paranoid. They finally were able to get a table at Stanley’s, mainly because Nat and Carol were terrifying. The owner, who insisted everyone call him Stan, was a wizened old charmer who made killer Challah French toast. Carol practically lived on the stuff in her second trimester once she could tolerate food. Bucky loved this place for its egg scrambles and delicious homemade muffins, but now every corner in Barkstead was fraught with peril.

“He’s not going to come here, if that’s why you’re freaking out,” Sharon said.

“Oh, what do you know?” Bucky snapped, drumming his fingers on the table.

“James.” Nat put her mug down and leveled him with the Hairy Eyeball.

“Ugh.” Bucky put his left foot down on the tiled floor to push his chair away and back on its back legs. “Yeah. Okay. It meant something.”

Sharon, Nat, Darcy, and Carol all watched him. Bucky exhaled, then let his chair fall forward. “I really like him.”

Nat’s hairy eyeball got bigger. Hairier. Eyeball-er? Bucky flashed back to how Steve looked yesterday. Small, birdlike. Breakable. That’s how he felt under Natasha’s gaze. It caused truths to fall out. “I think I’m in love with him.” He said it more to his plate, specifically to the extra crispy bacon to the left side of his egg scramble. Crunchy, greasy silence. “I don’t know,” he adds on, just in case the bacon needed more of his waffling around. (Fuck, waffles sounded good.)

“Were you in love with Alex?” Sharon’s voice was so warm Bucky dared to look up. They were all watching him with a focus that wasn’t scary at all - more of an anchoring presence than anything else. Bucky felt bathed clean by it.

“I thought I was,” he admitted, now focusing on the people in front of him rather than the food. “But, I mean, it didn’t feel good most of the time. When I’m with Steve, it doesn’t hurt.”

“Feels great?” Nat smiled at him, and Bucky totally understood the ‘pregnancy glow’ thing. Becca and Carol had it, and with Nat it shot off her like storms on the sun. It was almost easy for forget how Nat was telling him on the entire ride over to Stanley’s about how she’d been spectacularly barfing for a solid two months.

“Yeah, it’s wonderful,” he said, chugging some water to avoid talking any more. 

“Then you have to tell him about Alex,” Carol said. She stabbed a piece of asparagus with her fork. “Otherwise he might think you’re bailing, or you changed your mind.”

“Ahhhh.” Bucky pushed the heel of his palm into his brow to stave off the beginning stabs of a tension headache. “I mean. I’m still digesting the fact he’s not straight!”

“Bucky, you are the worst bisexual ever,” Carol proclaimed around a mouthful of quiche. Darcy hummed in assent. “Seriously, dude, I’m stunned you haven’t noticed the way he looks at you.”

“What?” Bucky looked at her, who merely shrugged her shoulders and pushed her oak-colored hair back with red-tipped fingers. “When?” he asked. 

Darcy rolled her eyes. “Every time you guys do a presentation together for Morning Meeting, like when you announced the joint History and Art History field trip for that photography exhibit in the spring? When you were doing your spiel, fuckin’ Degas could have risen from the dead in front of the Kirby and he wouldn’t have noticed.”

“It’s like his world goes like this,” Sharon chimed in, bringing her hands up to a wide position and then narrowing the distance, until she hovered right near Bucky’s face. “So open your eyes, Buckaroonie.” She bopped him on the tip of his nose. 

“Okay. Uh. Well.” That was a  _ lot  _ of information to take in. Was he that blind? Or was he just refusing to see what was right in front of him because of fear? “It’s too early for mimosas, huh?”

“It’s eleven AM, and it’s five o’clock somewhere,” Nat said cheerily, looking around for their server.

 

“I do have to tell him about Alex, huh?” Bucky said later, when they’d all downed some drinks and finished off their meals. He felt a little more relaxed, but still like his insides were looped around themselves in a double helix. 

The girls nodded in unison. “But! You should do it when you feel comfortable,” Carol added. 

“Yeah, don’t run out of here and put up a flier about how much you want the D,” Darcy tacked on. 

“Yes,  _ I Was Emotionally Abused By My Shithead Ex and You Made Me Feel Things Again, May I Sit On Your Face?  _ isn’t a great piece of promotional material,” Nat concurred. Bucky choked on his coffee.

 

* * *

 

_ Hey. I know it’s been a few days.  
I feel like I owe you an explanation. _

_ STEVE: Hey.  
_ _ STEVE: I’m sorry. I’m just feeling a little awkward. _

_ Can we get together after finals? Would like to talk. _

_ STEVE: Ok _

Bucky avoided Steve like the plague after that. It was clear Steve was not really excited to interact with him. He went started going to the off-campus gym in Barkstead and getting coffee at the places he knew Steve didn’t care for. He stayed out of Hydra at all costs, which helped him sleep at night (seriously, what the fuck did they put in their espresso?) but the lack of Steve’s face every day was a serious void. Nat was pissed, and let him know in several text messages a day how pissed she was. It didn’t matter. Bucky would do it his way, like it or lump it. “I want to collect my thoughts!” he finally exploded at Natasha at lunch one day, after making sure Steve was nowhere in the vicinity (he would put even money on him ignoring Bucky right back). “If I’m not careful, I’ll say something totally stupid.”

“So you’re just going to ignore him?” Nat asked, 

“Well, he said he was feeling awkward. So maybe this is good for him, too.”

Nat rolled her eyes. “Men are so stupid.”

“I would argue with you, but you’re not wrong. Plus, I don’t want to argue with you. It would mean the end of my ability to have further kids,” Clint said.

Bucky also received a text message from Sam the day before Finals Week began while in a History department meeting - 

_ SAM: Yo the saddest blond brick shithouse in the world showed up to our game against Choate  
_ _ did you guys break up _

_ WE ARE NOT DATING  _ Bucky fired back.

__ SAM: He looks like I did when the Falcons blew the Super Bowl  
__ SAM: Please make him smile  
__ SAM: Or blow him  
_ SAM: He looks so sad  
_ __ SAM: It’s pissing me off

Bucky bounced his legs up and down, accidentally creating a click-clack noise on the linoleum floor. The History department head, Schmidt, who was one of the most senior teachers at Shield (and who looked like he’d been teaching at the school since the day it opened in 1865) glared at him. “Something the matter, James?” Schmidt only ever called him James, which made Bucky feel like he was back in freshman year of college.

“Nope!” Bucky forced his legs to stop moving. “I’ll be fine. Just...got a lot on my mind.”

“Well, I’m sure it can wait until after we’re done.” Schmidt turned back around to the whiteboard. “Now, I’ve also heard from Head Fury that invitations for the annual Christmas Party will be going out this week. Make sure you each get one, and RSVP as soon as possible, because the party planning committee has reserved the Strike Ballroom at the Hilton in West Hartford.”

From behind Bucky, Claire Temple let out a low whistle. 

“Precisely. There’s a lot of money being put towards this event. We’re getting in a couple of donors - apparently Howard Stark may make an appearance. So don’t be idiots.”

Now it was Bucky’s turn to whistle. Tony Stark’s father, Howard, was one of the richest people in the state. As the CEO of Stark Industries, he had been instrumental in turning around Connecticut’s lagging industrial economy and was forging new frontiers in robotics and engineering. Tony had shocked everyone by announcing he didn’t want squat to do with the corporation, choosing to take a massive pay cut and going into education. Bucky had always suspected the Starks had anonymously donated money to the school in the past, but usually the role of representative at any high value function went to Howard’s wife, Maria, who ran the place when Howard was traveling. She was powerful, but internalized misogyny meant that the presence of Howard Stark himself would probably earn the school more money. Bucky hated that that was true.

It wasn’t until the end of the department meeting and Bucky was headed back to his office in the Helicarrier, curling his blue peacoat around him in the brisk December cold, that he realized: the holiday party meant his grand plan of avoiding Steve until at least the New Year (or maybe the New Year in forty years?) was going to blow up in his face. He and Steve would be in the same large room, with an obscene amount of alcohol and fancy people, for a minimum of two hours. If they didn’t talk before then, it was going to be unbearable, since Bucky would be too concerned about saving face in front of the major donors to get trashed. 

Dammit.

 

* * *

 

The first few days of exam week weren’t too bad, aside from a few students barreling into Bucky’s office hours complaining about how they were going to fail and never get into a good college. Bucky listened with an attentive, patient ear, as he always did, and hoped he got them all on more solid footing. He loved pushing his students, but he wanted them to get through this grueling time with their sanity intact. There was no point to going crazy over a test, he pleaded with America, who sobbed in his office over the AP exam even though it wasn't until May. 

But finally he had a free afternoon on Wednesday, and the Helicarrier was blessedly quiet. The walk to Steve’s office was nearly silent as the majority of Shield students were sitting afternoon exams. Bucky’s History midterm had been earlier in the week (just as a prepper for the AP exam in the spring) and the Russian History essays were due the next day. 

It was now or never. He could feel the protein shake he’d downed that morning gurgle like it was about to fully reject him. Nope. Not gonna happen. 

Steve’s office and classroom were located in the Jacques Dernier Language and Liberal Arts building. He actually worked quite close to Natasha; her Russian classes were in that building, and Erik’s German ones as well. Since he had the same classroom for both his Art History and English classes, Steve’s bookshelves were stuffed with a mish-mash of texts on both subjects, and posters of Jack Kerouac and Rothko studded the walls. Bucky once teased Steve that his nephews could create a Rothko and the absolute fire in Steve’s responding glare was both frightening and unbearably, illegally arousing. 

Bucky prayed Steve wasn’t in, but the guy had a goddamn sign on his office door that blared  _ Come on In!  _ In bright neon blue, no less. What a dick.

He stood outside that office for a good ten minutes, just breathing. Counting each inhale and exhale. Making sure that when he finally did go in, when he finally  _ talked  _ about this with Steve, that he’d be calm and okay. Putting in his earbuds and playing some Adele helped.

His hand found the knob of the door (bronzed, old, like everything else on this campus that hadn’t been added in the past three or four years), held. Turned.

Steve’s office contained the same cluttered sweetness as his classroom, albeit with more personal flourishes here and there - the team photo for the 2011-2012 New York Giants, a few photos on the desk of family and friends from back home in Brooklyn, like his best friend and Sharon’s British third cousin Peggy, a throw blanket folded on one of the comfortable chairs for students to use during conferences. It was always clear to Bucky that Steve wanted to make the environment of his office as safe a space as possible. One of the many reasons Bucky loved him. Or just liked him a lot. Or whatever, he didn’t know what the fuck was going on.

Steve was sitting behind his desk, and he wasn’t alone.

Gert, the little, wonderfully brave freshman from Coming Out Day, was sitting on the second visitor’s chair. She jumped up at the sight of Bucky. “Hi, Mr. Barnes!”

Steve also stood, his mouth symmetrically round in an open O. “Hi.” He sounded like he was slowly being strangled.

“Uh.” Bucky’s stomach clenched. “I didn’t expect you to be meeting with students.”

“I was just meeting with Mr. Rogers about possible independent studies I can do before I qualify for his AP art history course junior year. He thinks I have a lot of potential as an art scholar.”

“Yeah,” Steve said, still croaking a little on the beginning of the word. “Gert’s amazing. I think some independent work would be really beneficial for her.”

“Awesome!” Bucky grinned wide. “I won't interrupt.”

_ Back out the door  _ now _ , Barnes.  _

“Are you sure? I was just about to wrap up with Mr. Rogers. Don't want to get in the way of a teacher meeting.” Gert’s eyes were so innocent, so genuine. It made Bucky both happy and sick. 

"No. No it's okay. I’ll just...i’ll talk to you later, okay Steve?”

Steve stayed silent. Just jerked his head up and down. 

Bucky managed to slide out of the room without tripping over anything and made it to the hallway bathroom, shame flooding him in a fireball. 

When he came out to his parents, Bucky wasn't quite sure what to expect. Freddie and George had always been supportive of him, even when he decided to go into teaching instead of medicine. But the world Bucky came out in, the late 90s, wasn't nearly the world someone like Gert lived in. Sure, it was Brooklyn, which was obviously a better place to come out than, say, Alabama. But Bucky still waited, nervous about what might happen. He struggled, too, with what he was. Was he gay? Was he straight and confused? There had been several weeks in high school when Bucky had sat at dinner with the family, burning up from the inside with the desire to say  _ something.  _

It wasn't until freshman year of college when Bucky attended his first LGBTQ club meeting that he finally got a name for it, and that fall he came home for a weekend and told his parents he was bisexual. 

“Huh,” Freddie said, after a few moments pause that Bucky could have driven a train through. “Well, that's surprising.”

“How so?”

“Well, your father and I were waiting for you to tell us that you're gay.”

Bucky gaped at them, and George chuckled. “It's okay either way, James. We love you no matter what.”

Feeling flew back into Bucky’s arms and legs, and Freddie hugged him first, brushing a kiss onto his forehead. “We love you, so much,” she said. 

He had the best parents in the universe. 

Now, Bucky felt that same implosive, blue-hot impatience lick through him, with a numbing chaser:  _ maybe Steve shouldn't know.  _

Bucky didn't just have baggage, he had Dita von Teese steamer bags you drag through the airport on a cart. (Mmmm, Dita von Teese.) Alex had rearranged his insides, grabbed him by the sole of his foot and slammed him around on the floor for good measure. Therapy, family, and friends had helped make those baggage and bruises easier to bear.

Steve made him keenly aware of every bag and every scar. Not necessarily in a bad way, but in a way where he wanted to pull them up and examine them, to show them to the world, and to finally minimize them with someone else. With the right partner. 

But maybe Steve wasn’t the right partner for him.

After a few minutes, he heard a door click open and shut. Gert, probably leaving Steve’s office. By all rights he could go in immediately and talk to Steve.

The front door clicked open and shut again as he walked out of the Dernier, into the open chill of the December afternoon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky flashes back to a time when Alex got drunk and tried to take advantage of Bucky, but stopped when Bucky told him to.


	9. Interlude: My Shot

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An interlude - Steve's side of the story.
> 
> CW: Discussion of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, eating disorders not otherwise specified (EDNOS), depression, anxiety, therapy.
> 
> More in the end notes.

When Steve was eight years old, already sketching strange hieroglyph-like figures in the margins of his math notebooks, his parents took him to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was July 3rd - the day before his birthday - and there was a special summer exhibit showcasing the work of the Impressionists. Steve read on a placard next to a Monet (Impression at Sunrise) that impressionists emphasized the use of natural light, with vivid pigments that had just become commercially available to artists. He wandered away from his mother to another wall, where he stood in front of a Renoir titled _Nude_ on loan from the National Museum of Serbia. It was placed, in stark juxtaposition, next to the _Degas Dancers in Pink_ . His eyes flicked back and forth between the messy linework and vivid, shocking pink in the tulle skirts of Degas’ dancers, to the soft rosiness and sunset yellows of Renoir, who, another placard informed Steve, favored nudes in his work. He stood very close to _Dancers in Pink_ for a long time, wondering how something could look so seamless from far away, and yet so explosive and haphazard up close.

As he grew older, and stability crumbled within and without, Steve thought himself to be like one of those paintings. Not the coltish grace of a dancer, nor the lush voluptuousness of a naked woman - Steve liked being a guy, and didn’t have any difficulty with his gender identity, which he knew was a privileged thing.

He imagined he was the actual _paint_ on the rebellious white canvas, beautiful but messy, slapdash but purposeful.

When he first saw Clueless in high school, Steve had laughed long and hard when Cher referred to her nemesis, Amber, as a “Monet.” “From far away, it’s okay,” she told her friend Tai, “but up close, it’s just a big mess!”

Steve had his Renoir days, of reds and golds and blurry cohesive lines. Other days were more like Monet. Still elegant and complex, but a little more disorganized and violent once you got too close.

For the past few weeks - longer, if he were really being honest with himself - Steve had been feeling like a Van Gogh. Dark, harsh lines, wild spirals of impossible color and light threatening to rip him apart, throw him up to the clouds.

 

* * *

 

 

“Everything okay, Mr. Rogers?” Gert looked at him over the rim of her glasses. The purple rims clashed beautifully with her green-tipped hair.

No, nothing was okay, because Bucky had just been here, and Steve was having a fucking heart attack. Nothing was okay at all.

“Totally fine, Gert. Let’s get back to business.” He smiled, so hard he thought his face would crack open and spill out a flood of locusts.

 

* * *

 

Steve hopelessly loved Bucky Barnes.

He had been attracted to him for a while, probably from the first time he got to Shield campus and Darcy walked him over to Bucky’s office. Bucky had looked up, all warm steel eyes and fluffy hair in a messy bun and and gorgeous, sneaky smile and lean, vascular frame, and Steve thought _well_ that’ll _be a nice sight early in the morning._

When Steve got the job, he hung up the phone with Head Fury and stared at the wall of his Brooklyn College office, caught between anxiety and exhilaration. His office-mate, Gamora, spun around in her chair. “I guess that went well, eh?” she said, eyes dancing.

“Yeah. Really well.” Steve grinned.

The first person he called was his mom, who hit the damn roof.

Then, he went on the Shield Academy website and pulled up the profile of the man he’d met on his campus visit, because he felt like stalking already. James Barnes smiled out at him, all blues and greys in a white button-down and blue cardigan and sweet pavestone eyes, and his profile stated that he was working on his first book, an extension of his graduate thesis.

What was the harm in sending out an email? Steve didn’t see any. At the very least, he was forming a working friendship with someone who would help him get acclimated to the new campus.

He didn’t expect to fall head over heels for the guy.

Bucky was kind, and funny, and confident. He was brave. He was amazing with his students. He possessed bottomless amounts of empathy. He was so damn helpful with students; Steve flashed back to that one day in September when Bucky had called him at 1AM, scared and confused, asking him for advice on what to do with a student who had been displaying signs of self-harm. Steve had tried to rack his brain for things he’d learned in his teacher training for dealing with student mental health, but truth be told, he knew Bucky would end up doing the right thing. And Bucky did, and he’d hugged him afterward, and Steve had never felt more alive than in those five seconds.

Bucky wasn’t perfect, but he was _good._

When he was around Bucky, Steve was a Renoir. Smooth. Elegant. Lush. Brilliant pinks and yellows. Sometimes he was a Degas - with the whirling movement of dance and music encased in the paint itself.

Degas rejected the Impressionist movement, much preferring to call his style of painting “realism.” Steve felt real around Bucky. Tangible. Everything became more vivid and bright. Smears of paint, layered on top of each other. An _impasto_ technique, thick coats on a non-traditional white canvas.  

 

* * *

 

It really became clear to Steve the day the two of them went to Hydra Coffee, and their students called their friendship an “epic bromance.” Bucky had offered the girls a slow, smooth smile, and Steve had felt an arrow get him right in the ribcage. He quickly turned tail and went to the bathroom to throw cold water on his face - he didn’t even think people actually did that outside of the movies, but it really did help - before Bucky could notice he was affected.

The two men walked back to campus under the beautiful fall leaves, and Steve thought to himself, rather pathetically, _I could walk with him under these trees forever. Just capture it in canvas and ink, splash it across the sky and his skin. I would give a lot, just to be near his light._

 

* * *

 

Steve knew therapy was the most important thing for him in times of stress. hadn’t had a situation with bad eating habits in years, not since college, when the rigors of his major took away his appetite and he subsisted on coffee and bananas. Dr. Banner, Steve’s therapist since 10th grade, had gently admonished him. “You want to be in control, and this is how you control the ways you can’t otherwise get a handle on your life,” he’d said. Steve had worked his ass off and regained his healthier eating habits, but it took strength and focus.

It wasn’t ever really about weight, or wanting to look a certain way. When Sarah got sick, so soon after Joseph’s heart problems, Steve just needed something he could lock onto and say _yes, this is something I have a handle on. This, I can control._ The skinnier he got, paradoxically, the more he hid away, hiding his spun glass arms and legs under layers of sweatshirts and baggy pants. The smaller he was, the more ashamed of it he was. Some people want to show off their losses when they get that deep. Steve felt disgusting. His nails grew brittle and chipped. His entire body hurt when he woke up in the morning, but he still dragged himself onto that fucking treadmill at 5AM. And God, Steve was so fucking angry. Angry at himself for doing what he was doing to his body. Angry at the world for trying to take away his mother, after it had almost taken away his Dad.

This he could nail down. This he could claim. If disease could nearly eat away two people as important and vital as his parents, then what’s the harm in letting another one be consumed?

Realizing he was gay was just the dingleberry cherry on top of the poop sundae.

He wasn’t any paintings then. “Maybe _The Scream_ by Edvard Munch?” he’d joked to Dr. Banner. Banner regarded him impassively until Steve sighed and wrapped his arms around his knees, a puddle of cotton and bones on the therapy couch.

 

* * *

 

Steve’s first boyfriend was senior year of high school, once he’d finally started putting on weight and was getting ahead in his CBT. Scott Summers was obnoxious but fun, and they even got nominated for Best Couple in senior superlatives. (Scott Lang and Hope van Dyne won. They were still together and had a kid. Assholes.)

They really had no idea what they were doing, but they had fun regardless. Summers was Steve’s first in pretty much every way - Steve joked to Dr. Banner sometimes about his status as a “gold star gay” - and they genuinely did care about each other, despite how insufferable Summers could be sometimes. Steve ended up breaking it off mid-summer when Scott moved to Buffalo for college, but kept in contact with him throughout the years. Last year he heard Scott was married to a guy named Logan and they were thinking about adopting a child from South Korea. Why was Steve surrounded by happy assholes?

 

* * *

 

God, he had been so close to telling Bucky that night, the night of his Halloween Housewarming. Steve had stopped short, cut down like a bullet had gone through him, when Bucky had walked through the door, looking like every one of Steve’s unspoken fantasies had decided to hop out of his brain and coagulate into a living, breathing person. It only got worse when Bucky popped the fake fangs on his teeth, and Steve spent the majority of the party far, far away from the source of what could possibly be the biggest hard-on he’d ever had in his life.

Later that night, when he’d been sitting on the porch with Bucky, leaning in so close he could smell the Smashed Pumpkin on his breath and the vetiver and leather of his cologne (sprayed near his collar, or on his neck, _Jesus_ ) and it could have been so easy. Just a tilt of his spine forward, enough to catch the breath on Bucky’s mouth. But Wade barging out there and interrupting was almost a blessing. Steve couldn’t do that to Bucky. Couldn’t fuck this up.

Steve loved Bucky’s fearlessness, his devotion to his family, and his genuine kindness. He could watch him talk about his nephews and his desire for kids for days, weeks even. Plus, the guy enjoyed coffee in any permutation and could quote _A Few Good Men_ with frightening accuracy. That’s a keeper right there.

Jesus. _A keeper._ Like it would ever happen. Like Bucky could ever look at him, really look at him, see the rot and the fury and the self-loathing that every once in a while threatened to sink its talons into him, and _still_ choose him.

 

* * *

 

He’d been so angry over break, thinking Bucky had been off fucking some other guy. Which made him feel so possessive and disgusting, like he owned Bucky, like they were even dating to begin with.

He ended up getting together with Peggy, who always managed to set him straight. “You’re being foolish,” she said, British accent as crisp as her endive salad. “You’re always so dramatic.”

“You’ve known this about me since we were thirteen, Pegs,” Steve joked.

“Astronauts can see it from space, Rogers,” Peggy’s girlfriend, Angie, said with an affectionate nudge.

“Well I just don’t want to be too controlling or something,” Steve tried.

“Darling, you’ve been saying that since you tried to pick out what dress I was going to wear to senior homecoming,” Peggy said, terribly fond. “It’s who you are. A terribly annoying part of who you are, but it’s who you are regardless.”

“How did you not punch him in the face, English?” Angie asked. Peggy shrugged. “He was too small back then. I could have killed him.”

Peggy and Steve had been great friends in middle school, and ended up dating in high school - as much as two closeted teens could date, which amounted to going to the movies a lot and awkwardly trying to kiss in parked cars, a painfully embarrassing affair that ended with Steve making up an excuse about having to get home and make sure his mother was resting. They’d even gone to junior prom together. It was the classic _we are dating to hide the fact we’re both ragingly gay_ trope. Coming out to her the summer before senior year was a hilarious relief, since Peggy had been trying to come out to _him_ for months. Peggy met her amazing partner, Angie Martinelli, in college, and Steve knew a proposal from Angie wasn’t too far off. But of course, he wasn’t going to tell Peggy that.

Peggy was the one person who had known how bad things were getting with both Steve’s mom and his OCD-influenced eating issues, and it was her support and gentle pushing that got him into therapy in the first place. Hell, she was the one who suggested Steve place an application to Shield Academy, since her third cousin Sharon worked there in the math department. Steve hadn’t met Sharon before getting to Barkstead, but had immediately liked her. She was like Peggy, but a straight Peggy that drank beer instead of Scotch. Bucky's head nearly came off when he realized he and Steve shared another connection.

Peggy must have noticed Steve’s faraway expression because her own face softened. “You really like him, don’t you.”

“So much,” Steve sighed. 

“Then talk to him, Steve,” Angie said. She patted Steve on the arm. “Worst that can happen is he doesn’t like you back and the rest of the semester is really awkward.”

“God, you’re the epitome of tact,” Peggy said with a long sigh. Angie just smiled that soft, loved-in smile, and wiped a trace of lipstick off Peggy’s chin.

 

* * *

 

“Peggy’s right. Talk to him, dude.”

“It’s just...it’s just hard right now, Johnny.”

“So?” Even through the phone, Steve’s cousin Johnny sounded miffed. “Get over it.”

“You heard what happened, right?”

“Yeah, and it doesn’t sound like it was your fault,” Johnny’s sister, Susan, piped in. “Maybe something bad happened, or maybe he wants to take it slow. You don’t know until you talk to him.”

“Well, he did come over to my office but I was conferencing with a student.”

“Did he come back?” Sue asked.

“No.”

Sue made a noise of disappointment. “Well, maybe he got scared?”

“Yeah.” Steve rolled up his sleeve and looked at the swirls of ink and memory on his skin. Two dates, etched in black and difficult threads to pull on.  

 _6-28-2003  
_ _12-16-2006_

“I can hear you thinking from here, Steve-O,” Johnny said.

“Yeah, I know. I just...I feel like I messed it up by kissing him.”

“Did he say that to you?”

“No.”

“Do you regret kissing him?”

“No.” God, no. That kiss had been...it had been everything. Bucky’s lips were plush and luxuriant under Steve’s, and both of their bodies had instantly responded. He knew, _knew_ , there was a part of Bucky that wanted him back. But then there had been genuine fear in Bucky’s eyes. Who put that fear there?

“Well if you had messed it up entirely he wouldn’t have even come to talk to you,” Johnny continued. “Have you tried to talk to him, or gone to his office?”

“...No.”

“Then you're being a dumbass and talking to everyone you know about the same issue so you can protect yourself from actually doing anything about your issue,” Sue said.

“Thanks.”

“Any time.”

Full on Monet.

 

* * *

 

Steve knew he had to say something. It was just hard for him to come up with the right words, in the right order. How could any of it come out clearly, when even _he_ wasn't sure of how to articulate his feelings for Bucky?

He explained it to Dr. Banner on one of their conference calls, his feet taking him deep into the woods behind the Shield campus. A few miles up the road and he'd be at Shield’s sibling school, Triskelion; Steve had only been there twice, but found the atmosphere far too sterile. Shield had warmth. Shield had Bucky.

“Every time I’m around him I just relax a little bit. I can breathe easy. He makes me feel so comfortable. And he makes me laugh. So much. Like, I haven’t laughed that much in so long. But…”

“But…” Dr. Banner prompted.

“But I’m just nervous that getting into something serious might trigger my compulsions,” Steve exhaled, a large puff of breath.

“Well, I think the best thing you can do right now is to honor your feelings and talk to Bucky about it in a way that makes you comfortable,” Dr. Banner said, crackling phone reception doing nothing to hide the calm in his voice. “Perhaps just tell him you're feeling some strong attraction to him, and you're worried you may have caused offense? And try to remember that your compulsions might make you overthink what _could_ happen. You’ve been doing so much work over the last few years, I think you need to trust yourself a little bit more.”

“Yeah.” Steve nodded, even though Dr. Banner couldn't see it. He could feel the tangle inside his chest loosen up. After saying goodbye, he took a deep breath and swiped to Bucky’s number on his phone.

Voicemail. Dammit.

“Hey, sorry we weren't able to talk before. Uh, I guess I’ll see you at the holiday party, and then we can hopefully get together next week? Maybe we can go home to Brooklyn together and talk about it then. Okay, bye.”

He hung up, willing his heart rate to slow down a little.

_Did it. Happy?_

_Dr Banner: More concerned with you being happy, Steve._

_Yeah, I know. I feel better._

_Dr Banner: Good._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve's POV. Talks about his history with eating disorders, body image, obsessive-compulsive disorder, and therapy.
> 
> Based on my own experiences with these illnesses, so...any questions you guys have, just let me know!


	10. A Winter's Ball

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which IT ALL GOES DOWN FOR REAL.

Bucky woke up the morning of the Shield faculty holiday party to a coating of snow on the ground, with fat flakes continuing to fall from the sky. They clung to the branches of the naked dogwood tree that stood in the front yard of his apartment building. Bucky took a moment over his homebrewed coffee to marvel at the sight. Brooklyn had snowstorms, obviously. But in Barkstead, the snow meant everything became eerily silent under its delicate, beautiful weight. Silence was all around, while the white was split up by the holiday lights strung up in the town center. Bucky had multicolored Christmas bulbs of his own hung along his windows, which gave everything in his living room a soft glow. It was merry as fuck, and Bucky liked it like that.

It was the first Saturday of Christmas break, and Bucky would be headed home for the holidays week, but because of the holiday event at the hotel, he was catching the train back to Brooklyn on Monday when the train was off-peak. Today was for grading essays and making sure his only really nice suit wasn’t too wrinkly. He decided to multitask and Facetime Becca while ironing his dress shirt.

Becks answered the phone with three visitors - “Uncle Bucky!” Jamie yelled. Mikey gave a tiny flutter of his fingers. Danny made a hissing noise, like an ecstatic cobra.

“Your hair is growing out!” Becca exclaimed. Bucky reflexively smoothed it back. “Yeah. I might cut it off, it’s getting a little annoying in the mornings.”

“Nooo don’t do it!” Jamie yelled, reaching out towards the iPad screen. “It looks so cool. You look like Ash from Pokemon.”

“Oh good Lord,” Bucky laughed. “I mean, dream of dreams.”

He suddenly remembered something that had happened a few weeks ago at Morning Meeting, when he couldn’t find any hair ties and showed up with his hair combed but falling over his face no matter how many times he tried to push it back. Steve had done a double take, then said to him “I like when your hair is down.” The voice was meek, sliced through with what Bucky could tell in hindsight was a feeling adjacent to want. Bucky had felt almost guilty about how hard he’d beaten off to the memory of Steve’s voice that night, but now he just felt a little awkward.

“Earth to Bucky Bear!” Becca called. Danny stuck out his tongue.

“Sorry.”

“Have you talked to Steve?” Becca asked, because Becca Barnes-Proctor was insufferable. When Bucky filled her in, Becca sat back, shrugging so Mikey and Danny would quit crawling all over her. “Well...did you call him back?”

“Well, I talked to him.” Bucky had bumped into Steve the night before at the dining hall, and Bucky had shoved down the profound desire to jump into the trash compactor and replaced it with a smile, saying “Hey. I got your voicemail. Let’s definitely catch a train home next week?” Steve’s blushy face had settled down at that, and he’d nodded, and Bucky bit his tongue hard enough to taste copper.

“Good. You need to talk to him. I think it’ll be good for both of you.”

“Yeah, I know. I just need to nut up and do it.”

“Buck!” 

“Nut up! Nut up! Nut up!” Jamie and Mikey chanted, while Danny began gleefully screaming and waving his pacifier like a house banner on  _ Game of Thrones. _

“Thank you for this,” Becca said, dully.

_ Sorry _ , Bucky mouthed.

 

* * *

 

The Strike Ballroom in the West Hartford Hilton Hotel and Conference Center looked like Santa Claus had thrown up all over it. White lights twinkled from seeming invisible strings, and the banisters and tables were covered in gold and white bunting. “Red and green seemed a little too on the nose, I guess,” Nat whispered to Bucky, who giggled into his glass of red wine. He had Ubered to the event with Sam, Maria, Nat, and Clint, and he had to face the prospect of smiling through some excruciating interactions with boring donors and Steve Rogers, so he was going to need some alcohol. Not enough to get him drunk - Bucky wasn’t an idiot - but just enough to get him loose and chatty.

The budget apparently didn’t cover a live band, so music was being pumped in from the loudspeakers. It sounded  _ very  _ similar to the Spotify playlist Bucky’s mother played every year when she put up her Christmas tree. Lots of Nat King Cole and Johnny Mathis.

“I feel like a beached whale,” Nat suddenly said to him, knocking his glass with her own tumblr of club soda and lime, as “The Most Wonderful Time of the Year” blared on. She held a plate of chicken satay and crudites.

“That is literally impossible,” Bucky swore. Nat was in a gorgeous black satin cocktail dress that skimmed over her just-starting-to-show pregnant belly, her hair swept back in a similar style as what she wore to the Shield Commencement back in May. “You look beautiful,” he promised, because it was true. Nat could wear a garbage bag and outshine every other woman in a room. This compliment seemed to please Nat, who grinned. “Thanks. I swear that wasn’t looking for a compliment. I’m sweating my ass off. I can’t wait to go home and get into my sweatpants.”

“You and me both,” Bucky grunted, eyes checking over the room. Tony was on the other side of the ballroom with Pepper, his gorgeous and insanely intelligent wife. Tony was talking energetically with his father, Howard, who listened with the kind of tired expression one always gets when talking to Tony Stark - the sort where you glaze over and think  _ my God, does this mind ever stop _ ? The fact that it was Tony’s own father making that face made it hysterically funny to Bucky, who stifled a laugh and turned to joke about it to Nat.

Only Nat wasn’t there. Steve was.

“Hi,” Steve said.

“Haaaa,” Bucky drawled. He forgot how words worked. Or really, what words were. Because Steve?

Steve was beyond words. Steve looked fucking  _ luscious _ . And that made Bucky’s brain feel like a dirty old man from a 70s porno to even supply that word, but it was pretty damn apt.

Steve was dressed in a three-piece -  _ three-piece!!  _ \- emerald colored suit with a raised textured pattern, a sky blue tie, and light brown dress shoes. The whole thing was tailored to perfection, like the outfit was made for him - and knowing Steve and his love of well-made clothing, it probably was. 

And because Steve didn’t look gorgeous enough, the bastard had three days worth of scruff on his face. Probably because of the stress from finals, and not because he wanted to make sure this entire night was Bucky’s idea of hell on earth. Still.

“You look...nice,” Bucky finally managed to squeak out.

Steve’s ears went pink, and he stared straight down into his drink, a red wine of some sort. “Thanks. You, uh. You look great.”

“Yeah, this is the only suit I own. You look like you actually own more than one,” Bucky snarked, adjusting the cuff of one sleeve. It really didn’t look bad - it was a standard black suit that Bucky jazzed up with a deep blue dress shirt, giving the look a punch that really jived with his whole aesthetic of “badass young teacher.” His hair was slicked back into a low bun with some pieces casually falling out, because if it was too severe Bucky felt he looked like a British governess in a Bronte novel. At least, that’s what Nat told him - she’d called him “Jane Eyre” once and it had haunted him ever since.

“Well, if it ain’t broke,” Steve said, eyes coming up and giving Bucky a quick onceover that had Bucky hoping to God he didn’t flush as easily as Steve did. His teeth nearly tore a hole in the inside of his cheek.

His crush - or his  _ love _ , maybe, he had no idea, love had such a weird, twisted place in his heart since Alex - had reached the point where it was just painful. He couldn’t look at Steve without remembering the feel of the guy’s tongue in his mouth, the press of Steve’s hardness against his own, the cold fact that if Steve’s hand hadn’t wound into Bucky’s hair when it did, Bucky would’ve pulled him back down onto the nearest horizontal surface and let him do pretty much whatever he wanted. Then the bewildering sensation of realizing that Steve wasn’t  _ straight _ , and the multitude of hints that suddenly fell into place, the puzzle pieces clicking together. But then if Steve wasn’t straight, then what the fuck was he? And what were  _ they _ ?

Bucky was suddenly very glad he had taken an Uber to the event. He wanted to drink.

“Buckster!” Wade Wilson bashed his way over to the two men, Tony and Pepper in tow. He clinked his glass of some brown liquor that probably tasted like motor oil with Bucky’s own. “Cheers to the end of another successful semester. I trust you didn’t go totally nuts?”

“Not yet. And if Tony hasn’t cracked yet, there’s hope for all of us,” Bucky replied.

“Oh, we’ve got a comedian.” Tony gave a smooth eyeroll, and popped a piece of gourmet popcorn into his mouth. Steve offered up a small quirk of a smile that didn’t reach his eyes, didn’t look like one of those sunburst grins Bucky was so used to seeing. It broke Bucky’s heart a little bit.

“Well, I nearly lost my damn mind there for a second,” Wade sighed. “These kids are harder to direct every year. I caught my Romeo and Benvolio tongue-kissing on the balcony set during tech week.” Wade shrugged. “While  _ I  _ don’t care, they at least needed to pretend they’re straight for the show. It’s  _ Romeo and Juliet _ , not  _ Spartacus  _ on Starz. Unfortunately _. _ ”

“Aw, Wade, I hope you weren’t too hard on them,” Pepper said, voice filled with concern, while she flicked Tony on the hand so he wouldn’t steal a piece of her crab cake. It was the type of attitude that made Bucky know she was perfect for Tony. She knew how to put him in his place. 

“Well it’s not like I mind young love. Or young groping. Or young whatever the hell they were doing.” Wade smirked. “They’re dating now, it’s all very sweet, it gave me diabetes, blah blah blah, but I just had to sit them down and tell them to keep it in their pants until after the show closed. ‘M positive they didn’t listen, but eh!” He flicked his hand in a  _ feh _ gesture. “We’ll see what happens during  _ Grease  _ in the spring. Why do I always pick shows that are all about teens and their boners?”

“Because your actors are gonna be teens with boners?” Bucky guessed.

“And teens with lady boners. Feminism, Barnes.” Tony twitched his eyebrow. Pepper laughed, then turned to Bucky as he dug around on his plate for a piece of cubed cheddar. “How are you holding up, James, with the whole...Alex thing? He's getting married soon, right?”

_ Oh. Fuck. _

Bucky loved Pepper. She was smart, capable, slightly terrifying, and genuinely meant well. But in this moment, Bucky had never hated her more.

He couldn’t well say that, mainly because he knew Tony would rip his spleen out where he stood, so he swallowed hard and said, “Yes. On New Year’s Eve.”

“Jesus Christ, that’s so fucking extra!” Wade groaned. “I’m sorry, bud. I’d tell Pierce to suck it, but I wouldn’t want to give him the ultimate pleasure of such a tremendous gift.”

“Barf,” Bucky managed to joke through clenched lungs.

“Wait, Alex Pierce? From Triskelion?” Steve looked at Wade with inquiring eyes, then shot them over to Bucky, who immediately took a profound and deep interest in the gold bunting at the foot of the stage where Fury was due to speak later on in the evening.

“Yeah. He’s a dick burrito. Fucked Bucky over well and good for two years and then left him for his coworker. What a douchecanoe, right?” Wade said it all with the kind of breezy insouciance that he was known for at the school. The students loved him because he was bold and said crazy shit in rehearsals to get them into the right headspace. The faculty, well, they tolerated Wade because he got stuff done and his productions were always fantastic, and when it came down to it he was a damn good teacher. 

He just had no couth sometimes.

“Fucked Bucky over…” Steve’s voice trailed off. Bucky was still extremely invested in the way the staff at the Hilton folded the napkins into little swans so the cranberry stamp pattern was still visible from all sides, but he knew Steve’s eyes were trained directly on him. He didn’t want to know what was behind whatever kind of look Steve was giving him.

“Dude, you don’t know? That’s why Bucky doesn’t go on any of the game trips to Triskelion, or chaperone any of the dances when he knows they’re gonna be there. And I don’t blame him. Alex is such a fucking fuckass.” Wade clapped Bucky on the shoulder hard enough for a tiny reverberation to sound off in the back of Bucky’s skull. 

“No. No, I didn’t know.” Steve’s voice was now the same soft tone it’d had on the train ride back from Brooklyn. It lanced Bucky’s chest.

Bucky quickly thought about who could possibly rescue him from this impossible situation. His eyes, still avoiding Steve’s gaze, scanned the room. Sharon was having an animated discussion with T’Challa over by the fireplace. Sam was schmoozing with the rest of the athletics department, right next to Clint. Nat was MIA which meant she was probably in the bathroom taking her shoes off to rest her swollen feet, Darcy was up at the front with Nick, and Carol was home on bedrest. 

Bucky felt like a cat inches away from a bath, and no way to claw himself away. 

Nonchalance was the only way to play it.

“Yeah,” he said, sucking in a deep breath and shoveling a canape past his lips to avoid how much he wanted to scream. Diving right into the scalding water. “Uh. He and I dated for about two years, right when I moved to Barkstead and got the job at Shield. Started out really great. Then it kind of got...not great.”

Tony blew a raspberry.

“What happened?” Steve’s voice was at a register Bucky had never really heard from him before. It was intense, but still low in volume.

“Uh.” It had been two years, but it wasn’t really something Bucky talked about all the time. Sure, he’d done therapy and talked about it with friends and family, but this was definitely not the ideal place to tell  _ Steve _ . 

Screw it. Maybe this was how it was meant to happen. What is the right place to tell someone something like this?

“What didn’t happen?” he said with full breezy lightness. “He’s an asshole. Tried to control everything I did, closed off my circle of friends. Freaked the hell out on me when I talked about maybe getting more serious, and then a few weeks after we broke up he started dating his coworker and now they’re engaged. Pretty sure he was screwing around with him while we were together.” Bucky was pretty sure he got all of that out in one breath.

“Dude, didn't he try to-” Wade started, before a look from Tony cut him off. 

“Try to what?” Steve asked. 

“He, ah, got a little aggressive with me once. Kind of had to throw him off me.” Bucky went to take a drink of his wine and found his glass empty. 

“Right?” Wade blew out a hard breath of distaste. It hit Bucky in the face, all amber liquor and Orbit gum. “I told you. Dick burrito.”

“Yeah.” Bucky’s entire body was rigid, as if his spine were infused with iron. The sound in the room turned down a little - Kelly Clarkson’s “Wrapped in Red” was muffled in the speakers. Over the soup of vague noise, Bucky heard Steve say, “I have to run to the bathroom. Be right back.”

“Bring back some of those soft paper towels!” Wade called after him, sounding like he was speaking through Plexiglass. “I swear they feel like butter on your buttcheeks.”

 

* * *

 

“No!” Nat exclaimed, horrified.

“Shit, Steve.” Sharon looked stricken. “I'm so sorry. T’Challa wanted to talk to me about pairing up our classes for some projects.” Next to her, Natasha was sitting with a face just as poleaxed as Sharon’s. “anything we can do?”

“No, don't worry about it. You guys had to network. It's fine. It had to come out at some point. And honestly?” Bucky sank down into a chair, still nursing the same glass of wine from earlier (he didn't want to risk getting  _ too  _ drunk). “I'm glad I told him. Just feels like I got it all out.”

“Have you talked to him since?” Sharon asked. 

“No. He went to the bathroom and then I dove into my dinner to avoid looking at anyone, and Pepper is probably going to try and give me a kidney or something.”

Pepper had gone ghostly white during the whole exchange between Wade, Bucky, and Steve, and the second Steve had left she’d apologized at least a hundred times.

“I'm sure she didn't mean anything by it,” Nat said. She stirred her club soda and lemon, and stood up. “I think they're about to start dessert and the speeches, so I'm gonna go find Clint.” 

Bucky nodded, and decided to make a quick break to the bathroom before the coffees were poured so he’d have some time to sit and enjoy it before Fury got up on stage and started droning on and on about Shield and all of their accomplishments during the first semester and how if the donors present would just give a  _ little bit _ they could fund so many students and their dreams!

 

* * *

 

The bathroom at the Hilton was just as nice as the Strike Ballroom, with a huge bank of marble sinks across from three urinals and a couch just immediately after the doorway. Bucky chose to use one of the stalls. He had never been a huge fan of the urinal. Plus, there were so many donors and bigwigs here, he felt awkward about standing at one of those stalls next to one of them.

Across the bathroom, he heard someone walk out of a stall, then the quiet groan of the couch giving way to someone’s weight. Probably one of the old donors getting away from the party for a bit, Bucky thought as he finished up and headed out to wash his hands.

“What the-” he stopped dead in his tracks.

Steve looked up from his crouched position on the couch, eyes bloodshot. “Bucky.”

“Steve, are you…” Bucky still didn’t budge. Even though his brain helpfully reminded him that maybe washing his hands was a good move. “Have you been in here the whole time?”

Steve laughed, but it had zero mirth. “Yeah?”

“Why?”

“Why?” Steve parroted, still frozen on the couch. “You can just stand out there, and eat dinner and talk to Wade and Nat and everyone else after...after what that asshole  _ did  _ to you?”

“Oh my God-” Bucky gasped, then washed his hands as quickly as possible so the voice in his head that sounded vaguely like his mother would stop badgering him. “Steve. Yeah, it really...it was really hard to talk about it with you but it was two years ago. I’m okay. I promise.”

“Well I’m not!” Steve snapped, and Bucky stopped short. He’d never seen Steve like this before. Normally whenever Steve got angry - at a student, at a project, or even at a sporting event on TV - he’d go off into another room to walk it off, or he’d box it out at the gym, or journal it out. This was the first time Bucky was actually seeing Steve in all his self-righteous glory. He didn’t know whether to be freaked out or  _ acutely  _ turned on.

He tried again. “Steve, I promise, it’s okay. It was a bad time in my life but it’s over. I’m much better off now, and he’s probably gonna be miserable and weird with Brock over at their weird and miserable campus.”

“But, like…” Steve pushed a hank of hair back from his forehead. Normally it was so smoothed down and combed back. “How could he do something like that to you? I mean - it’s  _ you _ .”

“So?” Bucky adjusted his tie in the bathroom mirror. “People are treated shitty by their boyfriends all the time. I’m hardly a special case.” He didn’t say it to guilt-trip; he’d done enough research after his relationship ended to know that he wasn’t alone in his issues with emotional abuse. It helped to see things with clearer eyes.

“Fuck that!” Steve exploded, not so clear-eyed, shooting up from the couch so quickly Bucky jerked back. “Bucky, you’re - you’re one of the most - you’re  _ the  _ most amazing person. I mean, you’re so kind to everyone you meet, and you’re so  _ funny _ , you make me laugh all the time, and God, you’re so fucking  _ creative _ , your tattoos, like, are the coolest things I’ve ever seen, and the  _ Hamilton _ quotes in your office and…” his hands sawed the air like he was digging for the words, and Bucky felt his insides begin to liquefy because this wasn’t happening, this definitely couldn’t be happening, nope. “...and you’re so great to all of your students, you’re so good with the kids, you made me feel so welcome here right away, and like, Jesus fuck, I just, anyone who could look at you and not be in love with you is out of their goddamn  _ minds  _ -”

Bucky had seen plenty of bad 80s movies where, in the midst of a huge revelation, the Foley sound artist had put in a record scratch effect to emphasize the sudden stop of action as the main character realized that something big was about to go down. He didn’t hear a record scratch, but his heart definitely felt like it jumped off the player.

“In love?” 

Steve didn’t blush. Conversely, the color drained from his face and neck. “I. Oh.” He sank back down onto the couch, legs wobbly-looking. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. This is completely inappropriate. We’re at a work event, and you’re my colleague and you...you stopped it when we kissed, and...I’m sorry. Fuck. I’ve fucked everything up -”

“Steve,” Bucky interrupted, heart figuring out its rhythm again but now thudding so hard it was echoing in his ears like a dubstep beat. “Are you in love with me?” He took a step toward the couch, toward Steve. Towards his heart.

Steve buried his head in his hands. “I'm so sorry. Just go.”

“I'm not going anywhere until you answer me, Steve.” Bucky could barely get it out amidst the roaring in his head. “Are you in love with me?”

Steve kept his face covered for an exorbitant amount of time. Bucky stood rooted to the spot, feet numb, like the floor was made of ice. Finally, Steve mumbled from behind his hands, “Yeah. I think I am.”

Bucky’s breathing gave up for a good two seconds. 

“Like I said, you can just go,” Steve said,  resigned, still keeping his face hidden. “I can't even believe I said that, it's not like I deserve-”

“Steve.”

Steve looked at him, eyes still a little harsh, but more surprised than angry now. “Bucky?”

Bucky closed his eyes, breathed in Steve’s smell, of mandarin and lemon citrus, as his courage wound itself up from his still shocked guts to his throat. Enough. 

“I think I love you too.”

The words hung in the air for several pregnant seconds. Outside the bathroom, Bucky could hear Fury begin his speech, but he couldn't move. Nor could Steve, who looked halfway caught between laughing and crying. 

“We should..” Bucky started. 

Steve stood. 

Bucky breathed. 

“Can I-” Steve hesitated.

“Yes,” Bucky said, immediately.

Steve made his way, purposefully, to Bucky, wrapped his arms around him, and fitted his mouth over his. 

All thoughts fled from Bucky as his own hands found the back of Steve’s jacket and held on, kissing back with as much gentle passion as he could under the circumstances. He was still very much aware that they could be walked in on at any moment, that they were in a public  _ bathroom,  _ and no amount of Steve Rogers tongue was going to make him forget about that...but then Steve Rogers licked his tongue  _ into  _ Bucky’s mouth, and Bucky stopped concerning himself so much with public decency. He could taste the cherry notes of the wine Steve had been drinking, plus some tang from an appetizer with goat cheese in it. The tastes had nothing on the flavor of Steve, visceral and alive and here under Bucky’s hands and mouth, and it was all Bucky could do to keep from collapsing into it. Steve was such a giant, muscular man, and before he had kissed like a drowning man, but his kisses were now so delicate, as if he were still that fragile young sugar-glass boy of his youth, and the dichotomy of the body and the kiss shattered Bucky, scoured him clean. 

They broke apart for only a moment to gaze at each other, grinning stupidly, before Bucky laughed with incredulity and pulled Steve back in, nearly knocking their teeth together.

His fingers made creases in Steve’s suit jacket lapels as he pressed him closer, mouth opening wider under the surrender. There had been a chill in the bathroom when he’d walked in, but it was now unbearably hot. The kiss was deep, but there wasn’t any urgency to it, like their first desperate makeout in Bucky’s apartment. This was quiet, and so sincere it almost cracked Bucky wide open. 

“We should - ah,” he hissed, as Steve sucked down on his lower lip and his right hand drifted dangerously close to bucky’s ass, “we should probably get back - they’re doing the donor speeches -”

Steve pulled away with a nod and one more toe-curling kiss. “Okay.” His eyes were unbearably sweet, and it made Bucky want to say  _ fuck it  _ and throw him into a stall and get his tongue on every single inch of that beautiful body. But he didn’t want their first real encounter to be in a bathroom. At least, not in a bathroom during a work function.

“You’re sitting with the Art History department, right?” he asked then, looking into the mirror to make sure he didn’t look too fucked over. Aside from a smidgen of beard burn, he was okay. Barely a rumple to his suit. 

“Yeah,” Steve said, face filled with regret. Bucky knew the feeling. It was the thing that sucked about parties like this - everyone was shunted off to their respective departments, instead of being able to sit where they wanted. Normally Bucky didn’t mind that much, but this was going to be torture.

He traced a line down Steve’s cheek with his left hand, fingers catching at the corner of his lip. “Meet me for a Lyft afterward?” He tried to convey as much intent in that question as possible. It worked - Steve’s eyes grew hooded and slightly dark, and he leaned in again, brushing their lips together in a way that held only one answer. Bucky took in a sharp breath, and whispered “If you don’t leave this bathroom, we’re both not gonna leave.”

Steve chuckled, face tons lighter than it was when Bucky first encountered him. “Okay.” He gave Bucky one more kiss, then turned and left. Bucky stood for a few moments, thinking about every single unsexy thing possible, before it was safe to get back into the ballroom.

When he got back inside, he could practically  _ hear _ Natasha’s smirk from across the room, and he pulled out his phone to see a text message.

_ NAT: YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAS _

_ YOU KNOW NOTHING JON SNOW _

_ NAT: I CAN SPOT A POST-MAKEOUT FACE FROM A MILE AWAY _

_ NOT A WORD _

_ NAT: I promise not a word  
_ _ NAT: I assume we don’t need to hold an Uber for you? _

Bucky looked up to see Steve, watching him from across the ballroom. All of those clichés he’d been force fed from childhood about seeing someone in a crowded room and everything else fading away...it wasn’t exactly true. Fury was still talking, people were still drinking, the donors were still laughing a little too loud at the jokes Fury was making about the Academy’s reliance on outside money. Bucky could hear all of it, with a good amount of clarity. But the edges of the room did seem to blur a little bit more when Bucky locked eyes with Steve. Like the edges of those paintings Steve loved so much. Beautifully messy, but a cohesive whole. Something dynamic and perfect in its imperfections. Vibrant. Spectacular. 

_ Hell no. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Steve's suit for the party:
> 
>  
> 
>  
> 
> Bucky's suit:
> 
>  


	11. Helpless

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I look into your eyes and the sky's the limit."

Bucky slid into the Uber back seat next to Steve. The driver, a UConn student trying to earn extra cash, looked bored and a little sleepy as she asked, “Where to?”

Steve opened his mouth, but Bucky beat him to it. “616 Shelbyville Avenue, Barkstead, please.” He darted his eyes to Steve. A question.

Steve’s eyes were round with surprise, but his hand slipped between them and crept quietly over Bucky’s, just barely interlacing their fingers. An answer.

Bucky turned back to the driver, heart in his throat. “One stop.”

 

* * *

 

“Can I get you anything to drink?” Bucky said, voice thick. He had dodged out of Steve’s proximity to get into his kitchen once they’d gotten into his apartment. Steve had remained conspicuously quiet throughout the drive, simply held Bucky’s hand with a light grip. Bucky had forgotten how erotic the mere act of two hands touching could be. Alex had been -

No. No comparisons to Alex. This wasn’t anywhere close to Alex. This was Steve. Tonight would not be about comparing what Steve did to what Alex did. Tonight needed to be something new. A remaking.

Bucky looked around his kitchen cabinets for a clean glass, despite Steve’s lack of an answer to the affirmative. Anything to distract him from what was about to go down.

Steve was still so goddamn quiet, but there was a clear, avid heat in the room behind Bucky. He could feel it in his lats, in the tightening of his sacrum.

The heat got closer, until it was flush against him in the shape of a chest to his back. Strong arms wrapped around him, interlocking at his stomach. Bucky let go of the cabinet, hands falling down to the countertop, holding on.

“Is this okay?” Steve whispered in Bucky’s ear. Dumbly, Bucky nodded. Steve didn’t move, just held him close. 

“I’m so sorry he did that to you,” Steve said, still keeping his voice low. It was hard to concentrate on the kindness coming from it when the tone itself made Bucky want to slam Steve against the fridge and do unconscionable things to him.

“It’s okay. Well. It wasn’t okay. But it’s getting okay.” Bucky lifted his hands to touch them to Steve’s, criss-crossing them so he could lean back into the embrace just as much. 

“Did he…” Steve started, then stopped. 

Bucky took a breath, then turned around, taking Steve’s face into his hands. “Hey. You didn’t know. But yeah. Maybe no hair-pulling for a while.” He laughed a little, but it came out sliced open.

“Too bad. I like your hair. I wanted to pull on it.”

Bucky’s shoulders hunched up around his ears at the sudden chill that went through him, followed by a searing blast, swirling in the apex of his legs. “Fuck. Steve.”

“Sorry,” Steve said immediately, going to pull back, but Bucky held him tight.

“No. I meant like...you keep talking like that this is gonna be a short fucking night.”

“ _Ah_ .” Steve chuckled, the fucking monster. Bucky sank his teeth into his own lip to hold back a moan. “Yeah. You can't do that. Don't do anything.”

Steve laughed again, this time more amused than lustful. “Okay, I’m gonna let go.”

_ No _ , Bucky thought, but he let Steve loosen his arms. He turned around, then, and smiled. “We should. Um.”

And then he was kissing Steve. 

Steve’s mouth was warm now from the stale air of the car, but the taste still carried over. Deliciously potent. Bucky's hands fanned over Steve's face to push through his hair before he let his arms loosely drape around Steve’s neck. A long sigh escaped him, into the safety of Steve’s lips. 

He had never kissed like this. Had never  _ been  _ kissed like this. Oh sure, he’d thought about it a lot. Read about it. But Bucky had gotten really, really good at convincing himself that kisses like this were a grand invention, thought up by someone desperate to cash in on a dreamer’s fantasies. 

Everything was wide awake.

He pressed in closer, feeling his body melt into the wide plane of Steve’s chest and midsection. “I thought you were straight,” he mumbled, and Steve broke away to look at him with raised eyebrows. 

“I'm pretty sure my dick right now says otherwise,” he smirked, and Bucky laughed hard before kissing him again, a firm peck, before continuing. 

“No, I mean it. That's why I didn't say anything. I didn't think…”

“Didn't think someone like me was into guys?” 

Bucky looked down at the floor. Or he tried, but Steve caught his chin and met his mouth in another kiss that was so goddamn sweet it nearly took all of his breath.

“Well, I didn't think someone like  _ you  _ was real. Guess we're both wrong.”

“Oh my God, you fucking sap,” Bucky groaned, even as he hopped up on his kitchen counter so he could wrap his legs around Steve’s waist, tugging him in even closer. The sound Steve made turned Bucky’s insides to water, and he clung to him harder, their kisses growing in intensity. 

“Do you - have a problem with me - being sappy?” Steve managed to get out, between kisses. He jerked when Bucky peppered kisses on the underside of his jaw, tasting that sharp bone in the skin, licking the freckles. There wasn't a part of Steve's body Bucky didn't want to touch. 

Except…

“Oh my God,” Bucky said into the warmth between Steve's collar and the papery flesh of his throat. 

“Hm?”

Bucky could not fucking believe what was about to come out of his mouth. “Before I say what I'm about to say I really,  _ really  _ didn't think this was going to happen and if I had I would've been way more prepared -”

“You don't have condoms,” Steve interrupted, deeply amused. 

Bucky buried his face in Steve’s shirt, feeling like a fucking idiot. “I didn't think this was going to happen! Ever!”

“Do you just, like, leave your date in the lurch while you run to the CVS?” Laughter rumbled through Steve; Bucky could feel it in his head.

“No. I found some a few weeks ago. They were expired. I didn't buy any more. I didn't even think about it.” Oh, Natasha was  _ never  _ going to let him hear the end of this. 

He wasn't sure if it was possible to actually die of embarrassment. Bucky had never really paid attention in science class. But this felt like death. Every bone in his body was mush, but not in the good way, like after Steve had kissed him. Bucky needed someone to fold him up and put into a drawer forever.

“Hey-” Steve gathered up Bucky’s face with his careful, artist’s hands. “It's fine. I don't care. I'm just happy to be here with you.”

“But I wanted to...you know,” Bucky said, pitching his voice to what he hoped to God was an adorable whine. Steve laughed, and nudged Bucky’s nose with his own. “Trust me, as much as it would be fun for you to fuck me tonight, I'm honestly okay with just being with you.”

The phrasing tripped Bucky up. Well, it threw Bucky in a metaphorical dryer on the quickest cycle setting. “What? You wanted  _ me _ to?”

That fucking flush again. “Well,  _ yeah _ . Been wanting that for a while. But if you're not into penetrative sex we can do other stuff.”

“No, I mean -” Bucky squirmed out from between Steve and the counter, shoving his hands in his pockets as he stood in the center of his kitchen. “You don't want me to bottom?”

“Well, if you  _ want  _ to I'm not opposed to it. I switch, so it's no big deal. Whatever you’re comfortable with is fine with me. I just...just kind of wanted you to fuck me.” Steve was going pink again. “Is that okay?”

_ Oh, sure, fine, just everything I thought I knew is imploding.  _

“Come with me,” Bucky said softly. 

 

* * *

 

 

Once their jackets and shoes were off, and they were sitting on Bucky’s sectional couch, Bucky began. His toes were tucked into the back of Steve’s legs, almost by reflex.

“It started out really great. He swept me off my feet. Over-promised me a lot of things. I think I let him because I was so infatuated with him? He's a little older, and very established, and…” Bucky looked at Steve. There was no judgement in his eyes. It made Bucky brave. 

He pushed on. “He started to get really distant about a year in. We stopped having sex. And the whole time he was...he topped the whole time. Wouldn't let me do it at all. I haven't topped since before Alex and I met. Just got so used to it.”

Steve’s jaw was flexing like it had back at the party. “Peachy.”

“Yeah. He's a swell cat.”

“The cat’s pajamas.”

Bucky grinned. “You’re cute.” He kissed him before continuing. “He was just really cold all the time. But I was in love with him so, you know, I thought I could  _ fix  _ it.” He desperately wanted to look down but Steve’s gaze was so gentle, so kind, so full of  _ true  _ caring, that he knew he was safe. “He’d make fun of me about things he knew I was sensitive about, just because he could. When I called him out on it he would twist it so it was my fault.”

“Gotta love emotional manipulation,” Steve managed through clearly gritted teeth.

“Yeah. So about a year and a half in I asked him what our future was and he was really dismissive. Then we went to a party, he got crazy drunk, and that's when he tried to get all up on me.”

Steve pushed air through the gaps in his clenched teeth. Bucky nodded. “Thankfully he stopped when I told him to. But it wasn't the best night. He didn't remember anything about it the next day.”

“Can I hold your hand?” Steve blurted out. 

Bucky blinked. “Yes?”

“I'm sorry, I just really want to touch you and I wanted to ask for permission.” 

“ _ Steve _ ,” Bucky said, rolling his eyes. “We were practically just dry-humping in my kitchen. I think you're good.”

“Still! I want to…” Steve squeezed his eyes shut, and when he opened them, he seemed to want to look anywhere but at Bucky. “I want to make it good for you. You deserve nothing less than amazing.”

_ Fuck.  _

Bucky put down his glass of water, swung his leg over Steve’s torso so he was in the other man’s lap, and just hugged him tight. “You are a miracle, you know that, Steve Rogers?” His voice was pinched. “Just a total fucking miracle.”

 

* * *

 

“It got really bad when I passed out in school. Peggy - this was before we started dating - she doesn't scare easy, but she freaked and called an ambulance.” Steve’s voice was calm as he stroked Bucky’s hair. They had moved so Bucky was lying in Steve’s lap, Christmas music playing softly on Bucky’s Spotify. Bucky had taken off his tie, and his face was quickly developing some beard burn, while Steve’s mouth was pink and swollen; it's hard to have a sincere, deep discussion when you also want to make out with each other, but they were trying, dammit.

“Did that knock some sense into you?” Bucky asked.

Steve shrugged. “Kind of. I got forced into therapy, which I hated at first. Didn’t do much for a while. But Dr Banner is legit amazing. Very patient. Saved my life. And it's what got me referred to a psychiatrist, who diagnosed me with OCD.”

“You mentioned that at the Halloween party, I think. And you don't have the kind where you wash your hands a lot?” Bucky immediately wanted to hate himself for how he phrased that question, but Steve just chuckled. 

“No. It's not like that for me.”

He sat back, hand still curling through Bucky’s hair as Bucky looked up at him. “It's like your brain can't turn off. Like...I get these thought spirals I can't shake.  I’ll have something pop up and it’ll be all I think about for hours, or days. So when my mom got sick, I needed something to obsess over. I picked food and exercise.”

The last time they had talked about this at all, it was the night of Steve’s Halloween party, and they had both been a little worse for wear. Now they were sober, with zero liquor loosening them up. It was just courage. 

Bucky squeezed Steve’s knee.  _ I’m here.  _

“I still sometimes get into a bad mindset. It's not nearly as bad as it used to be. Sometimes when I’m stressed or there’s a lot going on. It’s why I have this - the end of the semester got me good,” he groused, rubbing the stubble on his face.

“Well, I kind of like this,” Bucky demurred, reaching up a hand to run his thumb along the sharp edge of Steve’s jaw. Steve ducked his head to kiss the edge of the digit. “Maybe I’ll keep it for a little bit, then?”

“That would be fine with me.” Bucky nuzzled back into Steve’s lap. “So it pops back up when you’re stressed. Do you take anything for it?”

“Yeah, Prozac. But hey, I’m human. Sometimes it doesn’t work. Which is okay. Dr. Banner always helps me sort it all out. But Bucky?”

“Mmm?”

“You make me feel really calm. Like I don’t  _ have  _ to be in control all the time.” Steve’s hand stilled in Bucky’s hair. “You make me feel like everything is a little more quiet. And fuck, when I saw you with your nephews? Stick a fork in me, I’m done.”

Well, what could Bucky say to that? There wasn’t anything. He was so honored, so utterly humbled by that compliment. “I mean, you make me feel amazing, too,” he tried to get out, taking Steve’s hand out of his hair and holding it tight. “You make me want to learn so much more than I know right now. You’re so fucking smart, and interesting, and you make me think…” he wracked his brain for the right way to say it. “You make me think I deserve good things.”

“Oh, Buck,” Steve murmured, leaning down to kiss Bucky, heartbreakingly soft. He said quietly into the kiss, “You deserve everything.”

* * *

 

 

“Do you like your body now?” Bucky asked, still snuggling into Steve’s lap.

“I’m liking it better with each passing year,” Steve said, tweaking Bucky’s ear. “I’ve worked hard to rebuild my body after what I did to it, and I genuinely do like working out. I just always have to remember that it’s about wellness and taking care of myself, rather than punishing myself.”

“I feel like, our culture gets so weird about men with eating disorders.” Bucky twisted around so he could face Steve without having to leave his lap. He played with the buttons on Steve’s shirt. “It’s so stupid.”

“Yeah. Men feel a societal pressure to look a certain way. Not in the same way as women, obviously. Women get a crushing expectation. But I can’t say that pressure didn’t have anything do with me controlling my diet or exercise.” Steve sat back a little further on the couch, relaxing into the cushion. 

"Well. I mean, I'm not going to lie and say I didn't notice your body first thing," Bucky said, shrugging. Steve just laughed. "I know. I'm kind of hard to miss."

"But that's not what made me fall for you, you have to know that," Bucky scrambled so he was sitting upright. "I fell for _all_ of you. How great of a person you are and everything. That stuff I said on Halloween? I really meant that shit."

Steve, Bucky could tell, was trying to _not_ blush, and was looking at him like Bucky encompassed a galaxy. It was almost too much to bear.

 

* * *

 

Eventually they made it to Bucky’s bedroom. It wasn’t frantic, filled with the peeling off of clothes or the pressing of lips to skin. It mainly came out of exhaustion from a night of talking on the couch and Bucky wanting to get out of his suit and into his bum clothes. “You can borrow a pair of my sweatpants...if they’ll fit that amazing body of yours,” he teased, opening up his closet, not shy at all about letting Steve see his bedroom. Hell, he’d already seen it during their Netflix and grading marathons over the fall semester - Bucky had given Steve the full tour. This was obviously a little different,  _ but we can’t do anything, because you don’t have any condoms, you noob _ , Bucky thought with an amused little shrug of his shoulders. He tossed Steve a pair of XL Columbia University sweats that usually made Bucky look like he was swimming in cotton, so he hoped they’d fit.

Steve went to get his tie off but stopped when Bucky moved to step out of the room. “What are you doing?” he said, rather incredulous.

“I’m giving you privacy to get changed.” Bucky said, phrasing the statement up at the end like it was halfway to a question.

Steve looked at him, the edges of his mouth curling up briefly, before bursting out into laughter. 

“What?!” Bucky exclaimed. 

Between gasps for air, Steve scraped out “Bucky, I kind of assumed we were at the point where you could see me with my shirt off. I said I wanted you to fuck me earlier!”

“I...I…” Bucky felt so goddamn stupid.

“Hey,” and suddenly Steve was so close, wrapping Bucky up in those amazing arms. “I’m not laughing at you. I think you’re the most adorable thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” He kissed Bucky’s forehead. “And besides, I kind of wanted you to take off my clothes.”

“Oh,  _ fuck _ yes.” Bucky’s hands were at Steve’s belt before he could even convince himself to say no, and Steve laughed again, full and warm, apple cinnamon cider and Brooklyn sunsets. 

 

* * *

 

“You’re fucking gorgeous, you know that?” Bucky breathed once he finally got Steve’s shirt, tie, and pants off. “Like, ridiculous.” Steve’s body was a V, broad shoulders tapering down to a ridiculous little waist, but it all looked proportioned somehow. He stood in front of Bucky like a man who knew he was attractive but was still a little overwhelmed by it sometimes, not sure of where to put that information. Bucky had seen him shirtless that one time in the gym, but this was up close. High-def. His brain threatened to short-circuit.

“You’re not too bad yourself,” Steve responded, looking over Bucky’s frame like he was a bottomless brunch; he’d undressed Bucky shortly after getting down to his boxer briefs.  “I wasn’t joking earlier, by the way - I’m obsessed with your tattoos.” He hesitantly touched the birds on Bucky’s collarbone. “These are for your nephews, right?”

“Yeah.” Bucky closed his eyes, feeling goosebumps at the touch of Steve’s hand. “They’re everything. Saved me so many times.”

Steve nodded, then held out his wrist. Inscribed on it, in black calligraphy, were the words  _ Be Still. _

“It’s from  _ Where the Wild Things Are _ , by Maurice Sendak,” he explained. “I just got it a few weeks ago. In the book, Max tells the Wild Things -”

“To be still, and he becomes their king,” Bucky finished. “Yeah, I know. I’ve read it.”

Steve looked abashed. “Right. I just get excited about that kind of stuff.”

“I know. I do too. And I think that tattoo is  _ perfect  _ for you.” Bucky smiled, letting his fingers graze over the fresh ink on Steve’s wrist. His eyes dropped to the side, taking in the rest of Steve’s ink. “More?”

“Yeah, uh…” Steve turned to the side, showing Bucky the numbers  _ 107 _ inscribed in cursive on his ribcage. “My grandfather, Grant - he served in that regiment during World War II. Passed away when I was really young, but he’s why I have my middle name, so because of him I started learning about testimonial literature. That’s his handwriting.”

He turned around.  _ Indifference is the root of evil _ was written in block near his shoulder blade. “From Elie Weisel,” he said softly.

“It suits you.” Bucky was just as quiet. He wanted to kiss the skin between Steve’s shoulders so bad, his lips itched with it. But he shook it off. More time for that later. He gestured to the sweatpants he’d gotten out of the closet. “You need those?”

“Yeah, thank you.” 

While Steve changed, Bucky yanked on a pair of Shield Academy sweats and brushed his teeth, thanking every single god in the pantheon that he’d done laundry and cleaned his room the day before. “I don’t have an extra toothbrush, so…” He flipped Steve a bottle of mouthwash. 

As Bucky brushed his teeth, Steve came up behind him and hugged him, looking over his shoulder to their reflections in the mirror. “You really love doing this, huh,” Bucky said, through a mouthful of toothpaste.

“Hugging you? Yeah, I do.” Steve nosed the skin at Bucky’s shoulder. “I’ve been wanting to for a long time.”

And Bucky closed his eyes and held on until the toothpaste in his mouth got a little gross and he had to let go to spit it in the sink.

 

* * *

 

“Can I ask you something?” Steve was cuddled into Bucky’s side, his considerable bulk surprisingly at home in Bucky’s bed. Bucky never wanted him to leave. Bucky nodded, turning his head to face him. 

“You said you stayed with Alex after the whole...what was the last straw?”

Bucky turned so his whole body was pressed up to Steve. He propped up his head on one hand. “We went to a wedding in Cape Cod. Erik and Charles. It was one of the best weddings I've ever been to. The gayest, too - their reception entrance song was ‘Hot Stuff.’”

Steve snorted. 

“We were on the way back from Provincetown, and I mentioned to Alex that I liked the color palette they used for the ceremony. It was all sea glass green and navy blues.”

_ “Is that supposed to  _ tell  _ me something?” Pierce looked like he had swallowed a lemon. Bucky frantically backtracked. “Uh. I just thought it looked nice. That's all.” _

_ “Ugh.” Pierce made his way onto 84 East. “The last thing you and I should be thinking about is something like that. You still haven't finished that book, and let’s be honest, it’s not like you know what you’re doing with your life yet.” _

“Jesus. Is this guy literally the spawn of Satan?” Steve’s whole body was tight, a bowstring of anger. Bucky let out a sound of agreement. “Yeah. I don’t know...I just snapped.”

_ “I  _ do  _ know what I’m doing with my life.” He didn’t know where this strength was coming from, but he was going to ride it until the wheels fell off, that was for damn sure. “I love what I do. I love my job. I love my colleagues. I love my students. And I love  _ you _. I know what I want. I’m not sure  _ you  _ know.”  _

_ Alex made a disbelieving noise, hands gripping tight to the steering wheel. “You’re not serious.” _

_ “Yes. I am.” Bucky straightened up in his seat. “I’d like you to drop me off at my apartment building. I think I need to be away from you right now.” _

Bucky ran his thumb along his bottom lip. “I realized that I was in a relationship with someone who actually didn’t really care about me, who was only with me because he saw me as someone he could control. We were off and on for a few weeks after that and then we officially were done that summer.” 

“So, you broke up with him?” Steve wondered.

“Yeah.” Bucky allowed himself a smile. “That’s the nice thing about it. I get to say I ended it. He’s such a dick, though: when he left my apartment for the last time I asked him for a goodbye kiss and he just laughed and left.”

“You have to  _ try  _ to be that big of an asshole.” Steve’s thumb massaged circles into Bucky’s shoulder. “What did Wade call him?”

“Dick burrito. He’s a master of strange epithets.”

“Yeah. Pretty apt.”

Bucky laughed. “Yeah. But in a weird way? I’m glad it all happened. I swear it made me into a better person, and I know what I want now.” 

“And...what do you want?” Steve suddenly looked so young, full of hope and also raw, exposed nerve. 

“Steve Rogers, for someone so smart, you can be real dumb,” Bucky whispered, and leaned in, capturing his mouth.

 

* * *

“How can you just sit there and think ‘History Has Its Eyes On You’ is  _ not _ the best song in  _ Hamilton _ ?” Bucky burst out.

“How can  _ you  _ think ‘The Room Where It Happens’ isn’t?!” Steve snapped back.

“‘History Has Its Eyes On You’ is the whole point of the show!” Bucky yelped.

“But ‘The Room Where It Happens’ has insight into Aaron Burr’s character which is at the backbone of the show itself and explains why he does what he does at the end,” Steve replied, raising his eyebrows the same way he did whenever a student tried to get the better of him.

“No. You’re wrong.”

“I  _ cannot  _ believe this is what our first fight is going to be about,” Steve sighed, scrubbing his eyes. It was 4AM, but Bucky was not going to back down. This would go on all night if necessary. 

“I’m going to need a full defense of why you think this is a decent position to have,” he continued. Steve flipped around so his face was smashed into the pillow. “Bucky, just let me sleep,” he whined.

“Nope.” Bucky settled so his weight was half on top of Steve, blowing raspberries into his neck. “I’m not going to stop until you admit it.”

“If I just admit it because I’m tired and you won’t let me go to bed, that’s not you winning, that’s you beating me into submission,” Steve said, pillow-muffled voice sounding weary but still very amused.

“That’s still a victory!” Bucky crowed.

“I’m not going to say it!” Steve responded, wiggling his torso to try and throw Bucky off him, but Bucky held on.

“Is this the first major impasse in our relationship?” Bucky pressed a kiss to Steve’s scapula before nipping at his left shoulder. Steve jerked. “You’re playing unfair.”

“Okay, okay,” Bucky cackled, finally sliding off Steve’s body and getting back to his own side of the bed. “I guess we’ll just have to agree to disagree.”

There was silence for several minutes. 

“Second favorite song on three,” Bucky said, breaking the quiet. “One. Two. Three.”

“‘Satisfied,’” he and Steve said, simultaneously.

“Oh thank fucking god, now I can sleep,” Bucky moaned, as Steve burst out laughing.


	12. Satisfied

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which sexy-times happen!

Bucky wasn’t used to waking up to the heat of someone else’s body in his bed. It was the best kind of surprise. He felt drunk on it, despite getting into bed and falling asleep stone cold sober the night before. He felt the heat of Steve’s arm thrown across his stomach, the bare skin contact doing way too much to stimulate his imagination in the harsh light of the morning. 

He managed to pick up his phone from the bedside table. 10AM. Not too bad. Steve was still out cold.

The night before passed by his brain in a blur of talking, laughing, a lot of making out, and eventual sleep around 4:30AM. Bucky couldn’t remember the last time he’d had that much emotional connection with someone. Pierce had sort of dazzled him, ridden up on a white horse of empty promises. Not too much Bucky could give back. But this? Last night was one of the most intimate nights of his entire life, and they hadn't even seen each other naked yet. Bucky doubted much would have happened if he’d remembered to buy condoms. He probably would’ve just fucked Steve’s brains out and fallen asleep. 

...No. That wouldn’t have happened. Bucky wouldn’t have let it. He would’ve talked to him. But there was no point in thinking about the maybes. Because last night was real, and it was so special, so utterly precious. Bucky wanted to cup it in his hands and never let it go.

He slid backwards so he was closer to Steve’s hold, which managed to jostle Steve out of sleep. “Mmm,” he said. Bucky curled in so he was further cocooned in Steve’s arms. “Morning.”

“Morning to you,” Steve mumbled, twisting his arms so he had Bucky in a proper spoon hold. “Sleep okay?”

“Slept amazing, thanks,” Bucky yawned. He felt Steve’s lips graze against his shoulder, the small bristles of his new beard scratching the skin in a delicious way. “Somebody kept me  _ very _ warm.”

“I’m glad it didn’t bother you,” Steve rumbled, and it vibrated into Bucky’s neck, making him shiver. “I run really hot.”

“Yeah you do. Were you the body double for the Heat Miser?”

“Shut up.”

“Never.”

“Good.”

Bucky let out a long breath of contentment. He reached back to pat Steve’s thigh, drawing their bodies closer so they were even more flush together. 

“Oh.”  _ Oh.  _

“Yeah, oops,” Steve muttered into his neck. Bucky could tell Steve was pink. Damn, he loved that blush. 

“Well, speaking of running really hot.” Bucky bit his lip through a smile. He moved his hips back, feeling the hard length of Steve through the fabric of their sweatpants. Steve exhaled through his nose. “I can’t help it. Waking up all right up next to you when it’s all I’ve wanted for months? It’s...It’s not like I could help it.”

“Oh, so this is  _ my  _ fault?” Bucky let his right hand move to Steve’s hair, scratching at the back of his head, hips moving a little wider. “Well, I’m not sorry.”

“Yeah?” Steve was starting to sound a little breathless, and it went straight to Bucky’s own cock. “Still. You should probably do something about it.”

“Oh, I should?” Bucky managed, now shamelessly grinding back against Steve’s dick, feeling the heat of it through his pants, the want radiating off the other man making him nearly dizzy. God, it was actually happening. They were both still sleepy, and the winter pink light of the morning sun was coming through the window, and everything was right in the world.

Smoothly, or as smoothly as he could manage, Bucky turned around to face Steve so that heat was all along his front now. He pulled Steve in so he could kiss him properly, fuck morning breath. Nothing a little mouthwash couldn’t fix. He was quickly growing hard himself, and he hoped Steve could feel it, the same way Bucky could feel his cock rub gently at his inner thigh. This was too good to pass up. 

Steve was in his bed. Steve Rogers was shirtless in his  _ bed _ .  

Bucky let out a soft sound into Steve’s mouth and moved him by the hips so he could get on top, and Steve responded eagerly. Bucky wrapped his legs around Steve’s waist, canting up for extra friction, trying to not feel desperate, but the train was pulling out of that station soon enough. Steve mouthed at Bucky’s neck, one hand pressing his wrist down to the mattress while the other slid between their bodies and stroked the skin between Bucky’s navel and groin, setting Bucky’s mind ablaze.

Bucky made a noise like he’d been punched, and pulled Steve’s mouth back up to his in a kiss that just bordered on desperate. He managed to say, once he got off Steve’s lips with a wet sound, “Been wanting to do this since you walked into my office that first day…”

“You too, huh?” Steve said, trying to joke but the sound dying in his mouth when Bucky palmed his crotch. “Ah-”

“Yeah. And at your party - shit, if Wade hadn’t interrupted I probably would’ve gotten down on my knees on your porch-” Bucky used his hip strength to push the both of them over, thankful they’d both slept shirtless so they could get down to business a little faster. He sat up, straddling Steve’s legs, spidering his fingers over Steve’s torso while his other hand massaged the long swell of Steve’s cock through his pants. “I’ve been wanting to put my mouth all over you for months,” he murmured, taking it all in. “Every time we hung out, I wanted - just -”

“Tell me,” Steve demanded, eyes dark, pupils blown. He arched up, erection tenting the front of his sweats. Bucky kneewalked back so he could slowly pull apart the strings holding Steve’s pants up, leaning down to drop his mouth to one hipbone. “I can’t talk with my mouth full,” he said, before running his tongue along the ligament connecting thigh to groin. Steve laughed, a cut-off, helpless sound.

Bucky quit licking just long enough to get Steve’s pants down and off. “Fuck, Steve-” Steve’s black boxer briefs were obscenely stretched, his cock peeking wetly out of the waistband. Steve stretched, and the head poked out more. He looked thicker than Bucky at the tip, slightly more plum-colored instead of the furious red Bucky got when he was hard, and a little less veiny. Fucking gorgeous.

“Somebody wants me to do something about that, huh?” Bucky purred. He was mentally giving himself a thousand high-fives. He might be awkward as hell at the rest of it, but get Bucky Barnes in a room with a consenting man and he was the king of dick worship. 

Steve looked close to whimpering. “Yeah. That would be pretty good.”

Bucky felt powerful, like he could make or unmake whole worlds with the tips of his fingers. He chewed the inside of his lip to keep from laughing, choosing instead to stroke his index finger up and around Steve’s cockhead. It was already wet at the tip. “Damn,” Bucky said, grateful he was already kneeling, because his legs were gelatinous. “You’re so fucking hot.” He made short work of getting Steve’s boxer briefs off, and then just sat back and marveled as Steve’s cock bounced back up to lie flat against his washboard stomach. Long, thick, but not one of those porno monstrosities. 

“You have a really gorgeous penis,” he said reflexively, then immediately wanted to shoot his mouth off his face. “Oh my God. Did I just say you have a gorgeous penis? I’m gonna go crawl under my bed and never speak again.”

Steve burst out laughing, so hard he was shaking. 

“Stop it, I’m overwhelmed!” Bucky shouted. Steve kept cracking up, reaching up to pat the side of Bucky’s face. 

“You’re so wonderful, you know that? Just amazing.” His face was so reverent it made any more self-deprecating comments die in Bucky’s throat.

Bucky used his index and thumb to flick Steve's hipbone in response before bending down and giving the head of Steve’s cock a little kittenish lick. Steve’s laugh broke off, a glacier from the mainland, transformed quickly into a keen. Bucky shot his legs back so he was lying down across Steve’s thighs, propped up on his forearms so his hands could drag across fair skin. He slid his mouth along the underside, relishing the salty-sweet taste, and enjoyed how the flesh twitched a little in response. 

“If you do that to trick me into getting it in my mouth, I'm never taking you seriously again,” he warned, barely containing his smile. Steve threw his head back on the pillow in feigned frustration. “You're gonna kill me, Barnes. You've been killing me since that day in the gym.”

“The  _ gym _ ?” Bucky gave Steve another smooth lick, gathering up the collected precome. An amuse-bouche for the main course. “Which time?” he said, once he swallowed. “The times I refused to talk to you because I didn’t know what to say? Or the day when I was dancing around to Beyoncé like a fucking idiot?”

“That one,” Steve said, totally serious. “You were moving your ass around -  _ fuck _ ,” he groaned as Bucky closed his lips around the head of his cock and gently sucked, “and if we hadn't been at the school gym I would've dragged you off and fucked you in the showers.”

Bucky let steve’s cock fall out of his mouth with a disbelieving slurp, his own giving an enthusiastic throb through his pants at the thought of Steve manhandling him under waterfalls of heat and steam. “Okay. Get the hell out of my brain, because that's  _ exactly  _ what I was thinking.”

They both exploded in laughter. Through hyena-like gasps for air, Bucky grunted “Okay, funny time is over. Shut up so I can suck your cock.”

“Okay.” Steve immediately tried to rearrange his face into something more sober. It quickly took on a half-melted quality once Bucky got his mouth back around Steve. 

Bucky loved sucking cock. More than the sucking, he loved putting his tongue on hot flesh, swirling it around the head and along the frenulum, tasting more precome as it collected at the tip, glossy and pearlescent. Things could be falling apart at a catastrophic pace with Alex, and he knew getting on his knees would solve things, if only for a little while. It took him a little while after that relationship, and a lot of therapy, to realize that maybe blowing your boyfriend solely to make him happy wasn’t the healthiest reason to suck someone off. Once he started sleeping with other people again, he began to appreciate the nuances of oral sex again, and the act became enjoyable on its own merits again. More than enjoyable; it was an art form to Bucky. He loved knowing he could make someone fall apart with his mouth and hands and artful placement of tongue.

This, though...the room seemed full of heat and lush promise. Bucky used his right hand to massage Steve’s tight, drawn-up balls as he moved his mouth up and down, creating a tight channel for Steve to fuck up into if he so desired. But Steve seemed content to just sit back and let Bucky do all the work, which was just fine with Bucky - more room to showcase. 

He ground his hips into the mattress to take some of the pressure off the ache in his own cock, the hand that wasn’t busy at Steve’s sac going up to stroke lazy figure-eights across Steve’s chest. Steve got very quiet, as if he were concentrating on every move of Bucky’s hands and mouth, the only sounds in the room Steve’s breathing and the wet noises of Bucky’s mouth. 

Goddamn, he could do this all day. And he  _ could _ . Steve was  _ his _ , if he’d have him. 

Once Steve’s hips began to buck up a little into Bucky’s lips, Bucky knew he was close. He popped off Steve’s cock to murmur “You gonna come for me?” against spit-soaked skin. (Bucky  _ lived  _ for dirty talk in bed. It was fun as hell when done right, and fucking hot.) 

Steve nodded, a herky-jerk of his head, as he reached down and grabbed Bucky’s free hand. Bucky doubled down on his movement as he hollowed out his cheeks and used his right hand to twist up and down, intent on wringing the orgasm out of Steve until he was a shaking mess. It didn’t take long after that, and Steve came down Bucky’s throat in bitter-salt spurts with a long, drawn-out sigh, his hips vaguely jerking upwards towards the heat of Bucky’s mouth. It shoved his cock down Bucky’s throat even more, to the point where he nearly gagged, but it wasn’t a bad feeling at all. Bucky loved the idea of pushing Steve past the point of all coherency. 

He grinned, and rolled off Steve’s legs, wiping his mouth. “I think I changed my mind. I have a different favorite song from  _ Hamilton _ .”

“Hmph?” Steve still looked a little come-drunk, but he twisted his head so he could get a look at Bucky. His eyes were glassed over but completely blissful. It was beautiful. 

Bucky smirked, and sang, in a not-unpleasant voice, “ _ Lord, show me how to say no to this, I, don’t know how to say no to this, but the situation’s helpless, and her body’s screaming hell yes- _ ”

In a flash, the look in Steve’s face turned from dazed to to joyfully feral. He moved, flipping them so Bucky was pinned underneath his bulk, a huge smile on his face. “ _ Oh, show me how to say no to this, I don’t know how to say no to this… _ ” he whispered-sang, before licking his hand and moving down between them to shove Bucky’s sweatpants and boxer-briefs down.

“ _ There is nowhere I can go, when her body’s on mine I do not say… _ ” Bucky started, then gasped as Steve’s hand, a little cool from the apartment air, wrapped tight around him.

_ Yes, say no to this  
_ _ I don’t say no to this... _

 

* * *

 

 

If Steve Rogers himself was a miracle, his hands and mouth were Goddamn revelatory. He didn’t mind when Bucky pushed his hands through his hair, not forcing his mouth down, just wanting to make sure there was something he could do with his fingers besides ripping a damn hole in his sheets. 

He touched Bucky like he was something worth preserving. 

He placed gentle, wet kisses along the shaft of Bucky’s cock to tease him until Bucky thought he would go near cross-eyed with want. 

He laid Bucky’s cock flat against his stomach and scooted down to tongue at his balls, the hot, intense pressure causing Bucky to throw his head back on the pillow, rumbling heat pooling in his belly.

Steve used his hands to scratch light lines into Bucky’s stomach, searing his skin. 

“Shit -  _ Steve _ -” Bucky yelped, barking out a laugh to keep from losing his fucking mind. “You’re a fucking punk, you know that?”

“I’ve been told,” Steve responded, voice muffled against skin.

“Just get your mouth on me already,” Bucky hissed, not unkindly, but he was about to go bananas. 

“You’re so impatient,” Steve tutted, tonguing Bucky’s slit. There was a frantic, kinetic video loop that wouldn’t stop playing in Bucky’s mind, of paint splashing across his body. Last night Steve had told him of how he sometimes imagined himself as the paint on a canvas. Bucky wasn’t as familiar with art as Steve was, clearly, but he’d taken an Art History course as a Gen-Ed at Columbia and had become fascinated by the work of Jackson Pollock, as most young adults can are. The chaos in the haphazard paint could be hypnotizing. Right now, Bucky felt like the canvas of the painting itself. Steve was the artist, to use Bucky as he wanted. His hands moved from Steve’s hair to cup the sides of his face, forcing him to look up and make eye contact. That nearly undid it right there - Steve’s patient, endlessly blue eyes, filled with so much - yes,  _ love _ was there,  _ love  _ and  _ care _ and  _ affection _ \- and lavishing all of it on him,  _ for  _ him.

“Close,” Bucky said, nearly biting off his tongue to keep from shouting or shoving his hips up to fuck Steve’s mouth. There would be time for all of that later. Time to wreck each other. This was something to be savored. If he could hold on any longer.

“You suck dick like a porn star,” he babbled, minutely rolling his back. Steve responded with an amused breath right down the length of his cock and that was it, Bucky was gone, in waves and waves and tidal pools of feeling and full body earthquakes, as Steve sucked down all of him without a drop to spare.

 

* * *

 

“You okay?” Steve wasn’t mocking, but he definitely sounded like he was gloating.

“Yeah. Just..give me a couple minutes.” Bucky hadn’t moved since he came. Fifteen minutes ago.

“Everything alright?”

“Yeah, everything’s fine. You just sucked my brain outta my dick.” Bucky licked his lips, still tasting Steve on them. “And now I’m  _ starving _ .”

“I thought I already fed you.”

“Jesus Christ,” Bucky covered his face with his hands. “You are such a punk.”

“Yes. I am.” Steve was teasing, but there was a note of vulnerability behind it. Bucky didn’t have much energy to sit up just yet, so he moved his knee to bump against Steve’s. 

“I’m going to treat you to one hell of a brunch at Stanley’s...as soon as my body remembers how to work.”

“Man, you’re really gonna give me a big head.”

Bucky scrunched up his face, and looked pointedly at Steve’s crotch. “Oh God. Too easy. Way too easy.”

Steve smacked his arm. 

 

* * *

 

An hour and a half later, Stanley himself placed bacon and egg sandwiches in front of Steve and Bucky and said, with a generous wink, “Eat up, boys.”

“Thanks,” Steve and Bucky chorused, the former getting that dusky rose blooming on his cheeks again. Bucky crinkled up his face in sheer affection. “So. After we stuff our faces, what do you want to do today?”

“Watch  _ Doctor Who _ . Cuddle. Rectify the ‘no condom’ situation. Spend as much time with you as possible.” Steve rattled them off like it was the world’s most exciting grocery list, full of happy confidence. Bucky couldn’t help but grin like a jackal. 

“You’re going to have to stop this whole ‘reading my mind’ thing, okay? It’s creepy.”

He slid his coffee mug across the table to clink it with Steve’s. He could hear a tinny vibration from the other man’s messenger bag. “Phone?”

“Eh, it’ll keep until after breakfast. Probably just my mom. Or Sam - he’s probably blowing up your phone too. Again, it can wait. I’m out with you.” Steve lifted his coffee mug to sip, and it struck Bucky that in the entire time they’d talked last night, and the time they spent that morning, Steve hadn’t looked at his phone unless Bucky was leaving the room or answering a call from one of his parents.

_ Mamoun’s was pretty empty for a Saturday afternoon. They were waiting for their takeout order of falafel pitas and grape leaves before heading down to Brock’s for what Bucky assumed would be a boring AF night of watching Brock drone on about medieval manuscripts. Not to take anything away from what people wanted to study, but it wasn’t Bucky’s cup of tea.  _

_ They’d been waiting for about ten minutes and Alex hadn’t stopped staring at his goddamn phone.  _

_ Bucky had slid his phone in his pocket about five minutes before, as a social experiment. Just to see how long it would take before Alex would realize he didn’t have his phone out, and would have to make actual, sustained conversation with his boyfriend. _

_ Thirty minutes later, their number was called. Alex hadn’t looked up from his phone once. _

“Hey,” Bucky said quietly. Steve looked up, mid-bite, a piece of bacon dropping to his plate. “Mph?”

Bucky walked his hand to place it on top of Steve’s free one, gently but still there. To remind himself as much as it was to reach out. 

Steve smiled around the mouthful of egg and bagel, and moved his fingers so they fluttered against Bucky’s. “I love you,” he said, once he swallowed. Steve had said it last night, and probably this morning, but this was in the quiet of the morning, without the emotions of sex to cloud Bucky’s perception of those three words. Instead of the all-consuming fire of the previous evening, this was pure comfort. Warm water pouring over his body, cocooning him, rocking him into a beautiful stasis.

“I love you too,” he replied, watching the peach rose of Steve’s cheeks blossom into something more akin to a Braeburn apple at the affirmation of his feelings. He tapped Steve’s knuckles. “Now eat, before it gets cold.”

After breakfast, they ran a few necessary errands - most notably to the off-campus Walgreens for condoms - before getting back to Bucky’s place, putting on  _ Doctor Who  _ (Steve and Bucky both favored Ten, which Bucky only saw as another sign that Steve was a fucking robot), and cuddling until late afternoon.

Then, as the sun slowly began to slip behind the treeline, as Bucky slipped one, then two cool, lubricated fingers into Steve as Steve practically whimpered into the coverlet, chunky knit swallowing up his soft sounds of acquiescence, Bucky said it again. “I love you.” 

“I love you,” Steve replied, muffled by the blankets, but Bucky heard it. Bucky heard it the entire night.

 

* * *

 

“So.”

Bucky huffed out an exhausted laugh, laying his forehead on Steve’s freshly scrubbed stomach. That shower had been  _ very  _ necessary, as was the immediate change in sheets. “So, indeed.”

“Gym tomorrow morning?” Steve said, even as he covered his mouth with a big yawn. Bucky nodded, and pressed a kiss to the freckle at the underside of Steve’s jaw. “Only if I’m allowed to dance to Beyoncé.”

“Will I get a concert, too? Or do you only give concerts when no one is watching?”

Bucky playfully butted Steve’s chest with the top of his head. “Well. I guess if my boyfriend is watching, that makes it okay.”

He felt Steve grow still beneath him. “Is that what I am, then?”

“Of course.” He looked up at Steve through his lashes. “If you’ll have me.”

“Oh good Lord, you look like Puss in Boots,” Steve said, running a hand through Bucky’s wet hair. “Of course I’ll have you. More about if you’ll have _ me _ , but -”

“Hey.” Bucky reached up and kissed Steve on the mouth this time, his fingers finding the spot on Steve’s neck he had worried with his teeth only 20 minutes before as he sank deep inside of him. Steve was so tight, so hot, his rasping voice in Bucky’s ear urging him  _ Yes, harder, fuck me  _ before finally coming with a long breath between both of their stomachs. Bucky followed shortly after, like a plunge into glorious cold water from a great sunlit height, seizing and sinking in equal measure. 

“You’ve had me,” Bucky said now, voice still a little raw from earlier. He let his foot rest against the swell of Steve’s calf. “You’ve had me since we met. You’ll always have me.”

Many Christmases later, Steve would tell Bucky that was the moment when he realized he wanted to spend every Sunday, and every weekend, and every weekday with him, as long as Bucky would have him. To which Bucky would make a sassy comment and look away, if only to hide the tears filling his eyes. And later in this future evening, at Winter House -  _ their  _ house - Bucky would take Steve apart. Gently, slowly, in every way Steve deserved, for all of the times that Steve had given him something so immensely precious.

It was enough. It would always be enough. 


	13. Epilogue: You'll Be Back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Seven months after the last chapter. Steve's birthday weekend in Niantic. Some shenanigans in a public shower, and retribution.

“You’re cheating.”

“How am I cheating?! We’re jogging!” Steve panted, slightly aporetic, as Bucky tried to avoid dry heaving directly onto his boyfriend’s shoes.

“Your genetics alone are a massive cheat,” he wheezed. He was in great shape, but this was ridiculous - Steve seemed to like sprinting past him and Sam just for fun and games. At least Sam was taking it like a champ, even laughing every time Steve pulled ahead of him and Bucky. Bucky, on the other hand...the protein shake he’d slugged down earlier that morning was threatening to come up again. 

“I’m built for distance, not speed,” he complained. “Swear to God, Rogers, I’m going to throw your body into Niantic Bay and they’ll never find you.” 

Steve laughed, loud and full, that warm sound that smoothed over all of Bucky’s rougher edges. He grabbed Bucky, never minding they were both drenched with sweat, and kissed him under the Black Point sunrise. “Now, Bucky,” he whispered against Bucky’s lips, causing Bucky to feel a quick buzz up his shoulder blades, “Is that any way to talk to a man on his birthday weekend?”

Bucky was helpless under that gaze. He’d been helpless since the moment he laid eyes on Steve Rogers. “Okay. Fine. You get a pass.” He squeezed Steve’s perfect, peachy ass (“Other people are here, kid,” Sam said from behind them) and took off. “If you let me win, though, I’ll make you pancakes!” he called over his shoulder.

The Niantic weather was an anomaly for early July. Cool, breezy, with barely any humidity. Gorgeous beach weather. The wind was at Bucky’s back the rest of the two mile trek back to Sam and Maria’s cottage, and while he was  _ positive  _ Steve had slowed up a considerable amount to let him get a win, he crossed that lawn like he was goddamn Meb  Keflezighi. 

“Have fun?” Nat was sitting on the enclosed porch, putting the finishing touches on Katya’s diaper. The baby cooed up at her, and waved an arm. Bucky blew a kiss in reply. “How’d she sleep?”

“Surprisingly well. She snoozed the drive down, so I was worried she’d get up during the night and make everyone miserable, but thank God that didn’t happen.”

“Nice!”

“Yeah...little Katenka didn’t arouse the wrath of Thor or Jane!” Nat still held Katya’s feet as she bent over her body, blowing a raspberry onto the bare skin of her daughter’s tummy. Katya’s blue-green eyes went wide with surprise.

“God, she’s so beautiful,” Bucky said, chugging some water. He didn’t feel that twinge of sadness anymore when around friends and their kids. 

“Of course she is,” Clint said from the doorway, illuminated by the light in the kitchen. He held a mug of coffee, which Natasha took gladly. “She takes after her mother, thank goodness.”

“Oh hush,” Nat said, taking a sip of her coffee and handing the baby off to Clint. “Your turn to have her.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Clint kissed Nat on the cheek as he bundled Katya into his arms, just in time for Steve and Sam to round the corner. 

“Oh, she’s up!” Steve lit up at the sight of the baby. “God, Nat, Clint, she’s so cute.”

“Right?” Bucky said. “I”m going to go get some coffee.”

As he went inside, Bucky caught a glimpse of Steve lifting his finger up for Katya to wrap her tiny fist around. He saw a look of wonder on Steve’s face, like Katya was the most precious thing in his direct line of vision. Bucky had been on the receiving end of that look many times.

He wanted that with Steve. Kids. A life together. The whole nine. It was only a matter of time. Obviously Bucky had known that for a while, but sometimes that feeling snuck up on him, covering him in it with a warm blanket of certainty. If being with Alex had been like being in a hurricane, being with Steve was the breaking day after the storm.

* * *

  
  


It hadn’t taken very long for their colleagues to figure out that Steve and Bucky were an item, considering they’d left together after the holiday party. Nobody was very surprised; Tony wanted to pay a skywriter to fly over the school with the message  _ Bucky Barnes Finally Got Laid _ , an idea immediately shut down by Pepper (although Bucky did think it was hilarious, especially because the idea of it made Steve go a whole new shade of red). They only had to address it to the school once, after getting called up by Fury to talk it over. “Of course there’s no policy that says our faculty can’t date each other,” he said, as Bucky and Steve sat stiffly in his office and Bucky wanted desperately to hold Steve’s hand and knew he couldn’t. “But it’s always good to just check in and make sure that there won’t be any conflicts.”

“Aside from our combined club work, which we were working on before we started dating, there shouldn’t be any conflicts,” Steve said immediately, and Bucky just nodded in response. Fury quirked his mouth in assent, and let them go.

They had decided from the get-go that they would be Mr. Barnes and Mr. Rogers at work - dating, yes, but colleagues first - and Bucky and Steve at home. Keeping rigid lines between work and home worked for them, because they both loved their jobs and wanted to make sure they each did them as efficiently and completely as possible. Since they worked in different buildings, it was almost like they actually worked in separate places, so it wasn’t too hard to do.

Date nights were in Hartford, New Haven, or Manchester - any town that didn’t pose a threat for them to run into any of their students. They’d find out eventually, but Bucky wasn’t in any hurry for them to know. “I kind of like this idea of us sneaking around, even though we aren’t,” he mentioned to Steve one night as they were getting ready for bed. “I mean, it’s the exact same as we were before, but now we just go home to each other’s apartments and...you know…”

“Fuck?” Steve smirked. Bucky laughed. “Yep.”

 

* * *

 

The outdoor shower at Sam and Maria’s was gorgeous. Concrete floor, with a big waterfall showerhead and an extra spigot at foot level to wash off extra sand from the beach. It was built to fit more than one person, since Sam and Maria rented out the cottage to families and they needed the space to wash the sand off their kids. Bucky had hopped in after a full day at the beach, and he’d just gotten himself soapy when there had been a knock at the door.

“Hey, Bucky’s in here!” he called.

“Oh, I know,” Steve’s voice answered, full of intent. Bucky’s heart jumped. “Oh really? Well.” He popped the door of the shower open just a crack. “May I help you?”

Steve had a towel from the beach wrapped around his waist, sand still speckling his chest and hairline. He looked bronzed in the sunlight. “I’ve got all of this sand in places I can’t reach.” 

“Lamest pickup line  _ ever _ .”

“Did it work?” Steve’s eyes were already going soft at the edges, hazy with desire. It was echoed in the tingles up Bucky’s own calves.

“Get in here,” Bucky grinned. He uncurled the towel from Steve’s waist, then pulled his boyfriend into the shower by the ties on his swim trunks.

There really wasn’t anything like this. Bucky couldn’t get enough of it. He let himself be pinned against one of the shower walls, the water pounding down on both of them, as Steve used one hand to streak soap across his body and the other to keep Bucky’s wrists in place on the wall above his head. “We just have to be quiet, I think the group is coming back soon,” he whispered, before licking his way into Bucky’s mouth. 

“Mph,” Bucky said, hoping it translated into  _ Okay _ , but losing most of his sense of time, space, propriety, any of it. He rolled his hips into Steve, feeling his cock nudge up against Steve’s. “Do we have time to?” Bucky asked between kisses, before biting his lip to stifle a cry as Steve slowly wrapped his hand around his cock. 

“We’ll make time,” Steve growled, and Bucky’s entire body twitched before he yanked Steve’s swimsuit bottoms down.

Sex with Steve was like being continuously cleansed. A few years ago, Bucky had stopped in a shop in Manchester and bought a few Palo Santo smudging sticks. The proprietress promised they would clear up stagnant energy. Having Steve inside him - being inside of Steve - it was a smudging ceremony, a sacred act that wrapped them both in forces they couldn’t explain. Here, with Steve, under the continuous pour of the warm water, and Steve’s hands and mouth and body pressing against him, making Bucky feel so safe and cared for, everything was clean and pure.

“You think you can be quiet?” Bucky murmured, sliding his hand around to Steve’s ass and squeezing a glorious handful. Steve pressed his forehead into Bucky’s and grunted. “Keep it up, and you’ll pay for it later.”

Bucky knew what that meant. It meant Steve giving Bucky everything, and Bucky giving it to Steve right back. Finally, a relationship where Bucky felt that all of their desires were equally matched. 

Plus, it was fun to find out that Steve was up for just about anything. Last week, they finally took anal beads for a spin.  _ Very _ good idea.

“Please,” he mumbled against Steve’s neck, sucking a kiss into the paperthin skin where his jawline began, “please fuck me.”

“God, babe, yes-probably won't finish in here-don't have a condom-” Steve stammered, before getting Bucky with another kiss that nearly killed him before it even started.

“Then just do what you can and you can get  _ that _ -” Bucky gave Steve’s cock a firm stroke - “in me later.”

After seven months, Bucky was starting to memorize what Steve’s buttons were and when he should push them. Getting fucked by Steve was like getting worshiped. Plus, Bucky knew could return the favor later. In this case, Bucky had better leverage and would probably know how to adjust to the small shower space. 

He bent over, holding on to the wall, making sure he had a good grip on one of the towel hooks before everything got hot and wet and blurry - Steve was on his knees, slowly circling his tongue around the rim of Bucky’s hole, every slip of muscle relaxing Bucky more and more into the wall’s hold. Steve wasn't doing this to pull a hard orgasm out of Bucky, Bucky knew - he was just enjoying him. All Bucky had to do was hold on.

One of his hands reached back and found Steve’s, biting a dent into his hip. He squeezed. Steve squeezed back. A little  _ I love you.  _

Bucky bit back a sound as he felt the pad of Steve’s thumb press against his hole, the water sluicing off his back in rivulets. He got a little sunburned today but it was nothing major. This was a better feeling, the  _ best  _ feeling, one that scorched out all others. 

Steve was lazily fucking in and out of Bucky’s hole with his tongue when they heard Nat yell from  _ right  _ outside the shower door “Hey, Buckaroo, stop using up the hot water! I have to give Katya a bath!”

Bucky froze, and Steve’s tongue instantly retreated. “Uh,” Bucky said, motioning at Steve to stay quiet. “Sorry! Had a lot of sand...I can turn off the water.”

There was a long, pregnant pause. 

Then, Maria’s voice. “Tell Steve he better not use my body wash again.”

“Steve’s not in here!” Bucky yelled, voice  _ far  _ too high pitched to get away with the lie.

“You fucking idiots,  _ we can see his knees _ ,” Sam’s voice, full of gentle mocking, floated over the door of the shower stall. Steve immediately stood up.

“Can still see your feet, kid.”

“Guys, come on, leave us alone,” Bucky said, forehead pressing into the wall with consternation. From behind him, he could practically feel Steve shaking with silent laughter, his head resting on Bucky’s left ass cheek, still gripping onto his hips.

“Okay, but just so you know, you two have now defiled our shower.”

“It is my birthday, Sam, and I’ll do what I want,” Steve finally said, trying to sound prim.

“Can’t two dudes shower together in peace?” Bucky asked, frustrated from the teasing and the unfinished business below his waist. 

“Hold up,” Clint’s voice came in now, “Are you guys...are you guys fucking? IN FRONT OF MY SALAD!?”

That did it. Steve let out a blurt of shocked laughter, and then they were both gone.

“You are all idiots,” Nat announced. 

 

* * *

 

“Well, file that under things I didn’t think would happen this weekend,” Bucky said, lounging naked on the bed while Steve finished toweling off. 

“Yeah, happy birthday to me,” Steve said, trying to sound unamused and failing. “You know they’ll never let us hear the end of it.”

“I walked in on Clint going down on Nat in a bathroom at a house party in Columbia, so I figure this karmic payback could have been much worse.”

“Yikes!” 

“Yeah. I’m shocked I’m still alive.”

“Oh, what time did you want to take the train into Brooklyn on Monday?” Steve pulled on a pair of basketball shorts.  “We meant to talk about that.”

“Eh, probably early so we miss the rush? Maybe the 9:40 out of New Haven would work.”

“Sounds good. You’re buying coffee if I get gas for the car?”

“Stellar. Plus I think Mom and Dad want us over for dinner that night. Make sure you eat light, I’m positive they’ll try to stuff us like Thanksgiving turkeys.”  Bucky gave a preemptive groan.

Steve rubbed his face with the towel while Bucky flicked through some emails and checked his phone. “Man, there’s zero service on the beach. I come back and I get flooded with texts.”

“Same.”

There were a few text messages from a number Bucky had deleted from his phone, but instantly recognized once it was back in his line of sight. He felt his body grow numb. “Steve?”

“Yeah?” 

“Get over here.”

Steve jumped onto the bed immediately, eyes filling with concern. “Everything okay?”

Bucky stayed silent, and turned his phone so Steve could see it. “It’s Alex.”

__ BUCKY  
__ I madea a mistake  
__ Brock iss sooborigng  
_ BORING  
_ __ I livke your bpnsis beter

“...What the hell does that last one say?” Steve craned his neck to look closer. “Is he trying to speak German?”

Bucky couldn’t reply. He just kept scrolling.

__ pNENI  
__ PENIS  
__ PENIS PENIS PENIS  
_ I LIKE YOUR PESNIS BETER  
_ __ IMISSS YOUUUUUUUU

“Man. I mean, I knew you had an amazing penis, but apparently I’m not the only one!” Steve stretched out alongside Bucky, keeping close. “You okay?”

Bucky stared at the text messages. Two years ago he would have been over the moon to get even ridiculous drunk text messages from Alex. But now? Now that he had  _ Steve _ , who was funny and kind and the most wonderful person he’d ever met?

Now he felt nothing, save for the sweet taste of karma. 

He smiled, and moved to the Edit button for Alex’s contact information. “I can’t believe he’s had my number this whole time. I thought he’d gotten rid of it.”

“Eh, he probably thought you would come crawling back or something. But he doesn’t know you.” Steve brushed Bucky’s hair back with one hand. 

Bucky felt his whole body grow soft. “No, he doesn’t. But you do.”

He leaned in, gently touching Steve’s lips with his. “You want to do the honors?”

“No. You should do it. My birthday present can be watching it happen.”

“Maybe I’ll let you watch something else later,” Bucky replied, fingers moving to “Block Caller.”

“Best birthday  _ ever _ ,” Steve said happily, nudging a kiss to Bucky’s temple.

 

* * *

 

Later that night, Steve held Katya in his arms on the living room couch as Bucky watched from the window seat on the enclosed porch. Sam sat down next to him, a beer in hand. “You two are great together,” he said quietly. Bucky nodded. 

“Yeah. I know.” 

At that moment, Steve looked up and caught Bucky’s eyes. He smiled that smile, the one that never failed to completely turn Bucky’s mood around, no matter what kind of day he was having. The smile that said he saw Bucky, truly saw him, and would always be there, no matter what.

In his entire life, Bucky never thought he would be so lucky. And he hoped against hope that his luck would never run out.


End file.
